# Steamroller?



## Poisoner

So is Steamroller coming out this year or not? I will be doing a new build in October and if Steamroller comes out around that time and has Nehalem level single threaded performance I will get it. I don't like chipsets with intergrated video wasting space on the I/O connectors so its that leaves AMD's FX or Intel's x79.


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## neo0031

I can't answer you, but I feel like AMD sort of missed the big opportunity this year, what with really Intel's Haswell taking the whole show (Computex). After the console deals, I feel like AMD should have taken some of the spotlight this computex too to show that they're a real contender.


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## Cores

Not too sure on that. Speculation suggestions Q4 2013 or early 2014, with the latter being the most likely. On top of that, "leaked roadmaps" show no sign of Steamroller for FX in 2013.


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## cdoublejj

maybe they are actually working to make strong improvements or changes to the architecture for once. Bulldozer is their first all new architecture in a long long time perhaps there will be some nice improvements and upgrades for AM3+ users.


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## Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> maybe they are actually working to make strong improvements or changes to the architecture for once. Bulldozer is their first all new architecture in a long long time perhaps there will be some nice improvements and upgrades for AM3+ users.


The long wait time for the release gives me a feeling that it will be extra good. I sure hope that you are right. If so, AMD's got a very good future ahead.


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## neo0031

So you guys are saying the Steamroller would be.... a "Tick" in Intel speak?


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## Mombasa69

Next gen console ports to PC are all multi core (8 core optimized) and developed for AMD cpus, using Radeon, obviously PC's with AMD 8-core cpu's will have an advantage, have no idea how well Nvidia GPU's will run, probably just fine, but it's the FX-8350 cpu that will benefit the most, and Steamroller whenever the hell that's released.

I hate this waiting game, and having a big wad of PC upgrade cash tucked away and doing nothing.










Current setup;

AMD FX-8350 (small oc to 4.45ghz) Corsair Water Cooled.
256gb SSD 750gb Hybrid HDD/SSD and 2tb standard HDD.
Asus Formula V Crosshair MB with 8gb DDR3 1866
3-Way Gigabyte factory oc 570s Sli
1200 Antec PSU
Phantom Case
Windows 8 Pro 64bit


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## Pholostan

Well, Kaveri is launching sometime Q4 2013, and that APU has Steamroller cores. But no word on a CPU with Steamroller that fits AM3+ in 2013. Sometime 2014, if ever.


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## SuprUsrStan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *neo0031*
> 
> I can't answer you, but I feel like AMD sort of missed the big opportunity this year, what with really Intel's Haswell taking the whole show (Computex). After the console deals, I feel like AMD should have taken some of the spotlight this computex too to show that they're a real contender.


Steamroller lost steam and got rolled by Intel









Only time will tell, though the later Steamroller comes out, the more people will start looking at Ivy Bridge-E Q4 2013 and then Haswell-E Q1 2015 which are going to be huge since they're going to be using solder TIM. EDIT: And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.


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## neo0031

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Syan48306*
> 
> Steamroller lost steam and got rolled by Intel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Only time will tell, though the later Steamroller comes out, the more people will start looking at Ivy Bridge-E Q4 2013 and then Haswell-E Q1 2015 which are going to be huge since they're going to be using solder TIM. EDIT: And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.


Damn that was cheesy but I love it.


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## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Syan48306*
> 
> And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.


True, and you'll be able to own one for about $1,200 when it comes out.


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## brad129

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Syan48306*
> 
> And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.
> 
> 
> 
> True, and you'll be able to own one for about $1,200 when it comes out.
Click to expand...

8 core are you kidding me? In Intel's eyes thats worth at least $1,500









Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2


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## EniGma1987

Steamroller hasn't been scheduled for a 2013 release for a long time from what I have seen. I thought it had been bumped to 1st half of 2014.


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## MasterGamma12

We also really need 1090fx.


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## MacLeod

If I was a betting man, Id say itll be out around spring of 2014. I would be shocked if it came out this year. Nothing that Ive seen around the net and from AMD and such, hints toward that.


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Syan48306*
> 
> Steamroller lost steam and got rolled by Intel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Only time will tell, though the later Steamroller comes out, the more people will start looking at Ivy Bridge-E Q4 2013 and then Haswell-E Q1 2015 which are going to be huge since they're going to be using solder TIM. EDIT: And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.


That is utter nonsense. I mean no insult, but use some common sense. IVY Bridge -E customers are spending a whole lot more than what AMD will be charging for Steamroller FX cpus. It is an entirely different price class. Those users are unlikely to use Steamroller even if it was released tomorrow.


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## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is utter nonsense. I mean no insult, but use some common sense. IVY Bridge -E customers are spending a whole lot more than what AMD will be charging for Steamroller FX cpus. It is an entirely different price class. Those users are unlikely to use Steamroller even if it was released tomorrow.


This since the E is more like the Interlagos price bracket.
and AMD clearly said they positioned it against an i5 (even though it beats the i7 hands down in well multithreaded apps)


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## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cdoublejj*
> 
> maybe they are actually working to make strong improvements or changes to the architecture for once. Bulldozer is their first all new architecture in a long long time perhaps there will be some nice improvements and upgrades for AM3+ users.


I sure hope so it would be really nice to know there would be an upgrade available that is better than my 100T in every way. (including rendering and single threaded)


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## Opcode

Kaveri is slated to launch later this year, so I wouldn't expect the desktop counterparts until at least Q1-Q2 2014.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Syan48306*
> 
> Steamroller lost steam and got rolled by Intel
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Only time will tell, though the later Steamroller comes out, the more people will start looking at Ivy Bridge-E Q4 2013 and then Haswell-E Q1 2015 which are going to be huge since they're going to be using solder TIM. EDIT: And Haswell-E is going to be an intel 8 core hasewll chip.


AMD actually stated that Steamroller is on track as expected, thus your Intel joke is moot. And sure you can own a Ivy Bridge-E for about $1500, which I could build two gaming rigs for that price that will max any game.


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## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Kaveri is slated to launch later this year, so I wouldn't expect the desktop counterparts until at least Q1-Q2 2014.
> AMD actually stated that Steamroller is on track as expected, thus your Intel joke is moot. And sure you can own a Ivy Bridge-E for about $1500, which I could build two gaming rigs for that price that will max any game.


All true besides they positioned it against the i5 and it wins there in well multi threaded apps it actually wins from the i7 3770k


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## Seronx

Kaveri - Q4 2013, November 11-14, 2013.
FX Steamroller - Q4 2014 to Q2 2015.


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## CannedBullets

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri - Q4 2013, November 11-14, 2013.
> FX Steamroller - Q4 2014 to Q2 2015.


Steamroller might not be released until 2015? Man that's crazy, AMD must really be expecting Steamroller to be great.


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## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CannedBullets*
> 
> Steamroller might not be released until 2015? Man that's crazy, AMD must really be expecting Steamroller to be great.


The transition from GlobalFoundries to TSMC is most likely the cause for the delay. You can expect Steamroller to appear after five months from each Haswell launch.


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri - Q4 2013, November 11-14, 2013.
> FX Steamroller - Q4 2014 to Q2 2015.


I don't buy that at all. That could only be true if there is no parallel chip development. I know it will be late . I suspect around May or June, 2014. We will know for sure in late October or early November when the revised roadmap is released. At the very latest the roadmap will be available at the AMD developers conference in November.


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## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I suspect around May or June, 2014.



Warsaw/Piledriver is coming out in that time frame.


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## Olsen

it look a engineering sample of a steamroller APU is spotted. google this : 2M186092H4467_23/18/12/05_1304

And have a look here http://cosmologyathome.org/show_host_detail.php?hostid=187215


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> Warsaw/Piledriver is coming out in that time frame.


And how much after the last Opterons were released did Bulldozer make its appearance?


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> Warsaw/Piledriver is coming out in that time frame.


I checked with a Google search. Bulldozer for desktop was released in October of 2011. interlagos or Bulldozer for server was released 1 month later in November 2011. Unless you are telling me no parallel work on Steamroller FX was going on during steamroller APU development it would be hard to believe your dates. Are you sure steamroller FX has not been taped out yet or has early engineering sample?


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## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Unless you are telling me no parallel work on Steamroller FX was going on during steamroller APU development it would be hard to believe your dates.


Steamroller FX is not being developed with Steamroller APU.
Steamroller CPU vs APU
80 PCIe3 Lanes vs 24 PCIe2/3 Lanes
2.5 MB L2 vs 2 MB L2
20 MB L3 vs 0 MB L3
256-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2 vs 128-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2
eSouthbridge vs External Southbridge
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Are you sure steamroller FX has not been taped out yet or has early engineering sample?


Yes.


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller FX is not being developed with Steamroller APU.
> Steamroller CPU vs APU
> 80 PCIe3 Lanes vs 24 PCIe2/3 Lanes
> 2.5 MB L2 vs 2 MB L2
> 20 MB L3 vs 0 MB L3
> 256-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2 vs 128-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2
> eSouthbridge vs External Southbridge
> Yes.


I guess I have to accept your claim, but how do you know? You have an inside source at AMD? By the way when I said parallel development I did not mean that the apu project would help them with the cpu project. I meant independent parallel development. That both project could procede simultaneously. Simple as that. I do Not know of the contract AMD has with the Taiwanese foundry nor of the pragmatics of project development. in anycase on or before the Novemeber AMD developers conference the revised roadmap will be public for all. Perhaps their may be NO steamroller FX cpu at all.


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## computerparts

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller FX is not being developed with Steamroller APU.
> Steamroller CPU vs APU
> 80 PCIe3 Lanes vs 24 PCIe2/3 Lanes
> 2.5 MB L2 vs 2 MB L2
> 20 MB L3 vs 0 MB L3
> 256-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2 vs 128-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2
> eSouthbridge vs External Southbridge
> Yes.


80 pci-e 3 lanes!








I really hope they don't pull a stupid pricing stunt like they're apparently doing with the FX-9590 nonsense.


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## Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri - Q4 2013, November 11-14, 2013.
> FX Steamroller - Q4 2014 to Q2 2015.


Sources?


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## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller FX is not being developed with Steamroller APU.
> Steamroller CPU vs APU
> 80 PCIe3 Lanes vs 24 PCIe2/3 Lanes
> 2.5 MB L2 vs 2 MB L2
> 20 MB L3 vs 0 MB L3
> 256-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2 vs 128-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2
> eSouthbridge vs External Southbridge


lol. I would love to see your sources on this. Everything I have seen from AMD doesnt indicate anything significantly changed in the memory controller size. The primary differences are in the front end of the CPU


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## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *computerparts*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller FX is not being developed with Steamroller APU.
> Steamroller CPU vs APU
> 80 PCIe3 Lanes vs 24 PCIe2/3 Lanes
> 2.5 MB L2 vs 2 MB L2
> 20 MB L3 vs 0 MB L3
> 256-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2 vs 128-bit IMC DDR3/DDR4/XDR2
> eSouthbridge vs External Southbridge
> Yes.
> 
> 
> 
> 80 pci-e 3 lanes!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I really hope they don't pull a stupid pricing stunt like they're apparently doing with the FX-9590 nonsense.
Click to expand...

Get ready for Septfire! 5 GPUs at 16x!


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## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Get ready for Septfire! 5 GPUs at 16x!


Let's just start by fixing the frame metering first then we can go all out massive.


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## Abundant Cores

It will be another flop.

AMD don't seem to be able to get their head around the fact that people want per-core + per-clock performance. they seem to think people want a 40% IPC deficit spread across far to many cores running far to many Mhz.

Its not as if they couldn't make a fast CPU even with current tech, the main reasons Piledriver is so slow is because A- Cores are sharing resources causing bottlenecks and B- have mile long Pipelines to enable it to overclock to silly speeds causing huge Ops-Cycles errors further reducing FP and IPC performance.... and for what? 9Ghz overclocks?!?!?! what good is that to me?

I like AMD as a company, or at least I did, now, I don't just think they have lost their way, I think they have lost their heads!

And its a real shame, because AMD can innovate with $10m what it takes Intel $100m.


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## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> It will be another flop.
> 
> AMD don't seem to be able to get their head around the fact that people want per-core + per-clock performance. they seem to think people want a 40% IPC deficit spread across far to many cores running far to many Mhz.
> 
> Its not as if they couldn't make a fast CPU even with current tech, the main reasons Piledriver is so slow is because A- Cores are sharing resources causing bottlenecks and B- have mile long Pipelines to enable it to overclock to silly speeds causing huge Ops-Cycles errors further reducing FP and IPC performance.... and for what? 9Ghz overclocks?!?!?! what good is that to me?
> 
> I like AMD as a company, or at least I did, now, I don't just think they have lost their way, I think they have lost their heads!
> 
> And its a real shame, because AMD can innovate with $10m what it takes Intel $100m.


Well your username awkwardly in line with this post








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Philips/ Director*
> "But Red engineer what do we do to match Intel's performance, and when do we do it?!"


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Red/ AMD engineer*
> "Don't worry my friend time cores is one of the things we have in abundance down here"


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## junhawng

Hopefully soon amd will get their act together, and do it like back in the days when amd first came into the consumer based cpu business, when AMD Chips just smashed intel chips while costing way less.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Well your username awkwardly in line with this post


I'm glad someone around here gets irony


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> It will be another flop.
> 
> AMD don't seem to be able to get their head around the fact that people want per-core + per-clock performance. they seem to think people want a 40% IPC deficit spread across far to many cores running far to many Mhz.
> 
> Its not as if they couldn't make a fast CPU even with current tech, the main reasons Piledriver is so slow is because A- Cores are sharing resources causing bottlenecks and B- have mile long Pipelines to enable it to overclock to silly speeds causing huge Ops-Cycles errors further reducing FP and IPC performance.... and for what? 9Ghz overclocks?!?!?! what good is that to me?
> 
> I like AMD as a company, or at least I did, now, I don't just think they have lost their way, I think they have lost their heads!
> 
> And its a real shame, because AMD can innovate with $10m what it takes Intel $100m.


I doubt that it will be a flop. It will be late. Perhaps July of 2014. New road map from AMD comes out at Developer's conference in early November. HSA is the correct strategy to go with over the long haul.


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## chromejaguar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I doubt that it will be a flop. It will be late. Perhaps July of 2014. New road map from AMD comes out at Developer's conference in early November. HSA is the correct strategy to go with over the long haul.


July of 2014, isnt everyone talking about an Autumn release?


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## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chromejaguar*
> 
> July of 2014, isnt everyone talking about an Autumn release?


Yes under worst of circumsrances October- November. But I think it may be a little earlier than that. Just a hunch. Perhaps a naive one at that.


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## ladcrooks

I would rather they took their time and get it right

A little bit more power on a single core will go a long way.


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## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chromejaguar*
> 
> July of 2014, isnt everyone talking about an Autumn release?


I think talking about Autumn release was supposed to be Autumn this year, (the original release date)
I can't see it being delayed by a full 12 Months, and as far as I know no one ever suggested anything like that.
The Steamroller APU Kaveri has already been spotted undergoing testing, its due to start shipping Autumn 2013 (in a few months)


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## MrJava

Why would there be a AM3+ steamroller without corresponding server parts for the G34 socket?

I honestly think they have instead dedicated resources for chips on a future platform for high end servers/enthusiast (perhaps with quad channel DDR3 and on die PCIe3.0). This would a smarter decision especially with regards to high end server APUs.

FM2+/FM3 would be the platform for mid range and budget rigs.


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## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Why would there be a AM3+ steamroller without corresponding server parts for the G34 socket?
> 
> I honestly think they have instead dedicated resources for chips on a future platform for high end servers/enthusiast (perhaps with quad channel DDR3 and on die PCIe3.0). This would a smarter decision especially with regards to high end server APUs.
> 
> FM2+/FM3 would be the platform for mid range and budget rigs.


http://www.extremetech.com/computing/158901-amd-server-assault-2014-roadmap

3 New server chips.

Steamroller based APU (Berlin)

ARM 64Bit SoC- Server (Seattle)

On page 2, Steamroller- Opteron, 12 and 16 Core (Warsaw)


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## MrJava

Take a look at the article again - Warsaw is using piledriver cores. It was in AMD's slides.


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## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> lol. I would love to see your sources on this. Everything I have seen from AMD doesnt indicate anything significantly changed in the memory controller size. The primary differences are in the front end of the CPU


As a follow up to my previous post here, this image shows the main differences that are going to be in this new architecture. So as I said, we arent seeing major design overhauls with crazy things being added. The main difference is in the front end:



I think by the whole "256-bit memory controller" the poster is getting confused between desktop and server parts. The server G34 socket stuff has been on 256-bit memory controllers for a LONG time, longer than Intel has ever had quad channel memory. This will continue to have the same memory controller as well and is not changing. On the desktop side of things AMD is STILL saying there will not be a Steamroller FX on AM3+ chipset, and that we will see Steamroller APU's on the desktop only. This is where I think the main confusion is for people on the specs of the next gen parts. It is part of the continued push for the HSA stuff AMD is doing and the direction the new CEO is taking the company. I really hope we see a 4 module Steamroller processor on desktop because I would love to upgrade to one, but that will not be released anytime soon if at all. What we are getting is an APU with 2 modules for the CPU.


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## Heuchler

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> On the desktop side of things AMD is STILL saying there will not be a Steamroller FX on AM3+ chipset...


any source of that. I haven't seen anything official from AMD either way on AM3+ Steamroller.
If the performance is there I'm willing to switch from my current AM3+ setup to a FM2+ rig.
HSA could be worth it. Performance and Power Saving wise.

Quote:


> "AMD has a long history of supporting the DIY and enthusiast desktop market with socketed CPUs and APUs that are compatible with a wide range of motherboard products from our partners. That will continue through 2013 and 2014 with the 'Kaveri' APU and FX CPU lines. We have no plans at this time to move to BGA-only packaging and look forward to continuing to support this critical segment of the market," said Gary Silcott, a spokesman for AMD.


AMD Vows Not to Drop Microprocessor Sockets in Next Two Years [xbit]

Quote:


> As it emerged this week, AMD will delay the roll-out of its Steamroller micro-architecture powered server and desktop processors till late 2014, hence, the firm will continue to sell FX-series chips in AM3+ form-factor throughout 2013 and most of 2014. It is logical to expect AMD to continue offering interchangeable high-end desktop central processing units after 2014 to provide necessary flexibility to enthusiasts.


AMD sticks with Socket AM3+ for Steamroller [the INQUIRER]

AMD has said that its upcoming Vishera chip will not be the last to use Socket AM3+.
AMD's desktop Piledriver processor, which is better known by its Vishera codename, will use the firm's Socket AM3+, effectively meaning the chip is a drop-in replacement from previous generation Zambezi processors. The firm said that it will continue to support the AM3+ socket and that this won't be the last processor to use the socket.

AMD also confirmed a lot of leaked information on Vishera and touted its overclocking abilities, which The INQUIRER saw first hand two weeks ago. The firm not only confirmed that Socket AM3+ users can expect at least one more chip, almost certainly one based on the Steamroller architecture, it said that all of its future processors "in a few years time" will be socket compatible.


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## DarthElvis

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heuchler*
> 
> ...


None of that means Stemroller will be AM3+. Release in *late* 2014, with AM3+ support through 2013 and *MOST* of 2014 tells me that there will be another socket in late 2014. I'd be willing to bet that Steamroller will not be AM3+.
Oh yeah, the one more chip for AM3+ is the FX-9590. AMD is pulling a ****ty, stringing people along so they can sell more AM3+ boards and chips.
Read between the lines with regard to AMD's marketing speak. AMD has no plans, and never had any plans for an AM3+ Steamroller. They just allowed us to assume that was the case.


----------



## icehotshot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *junhawng*
> 
> Hopefully soon amd will get their act together, and do it like back in the days when amd first came into the consumer based cpu business, *when AMD Chips just smashed intel chips while costing way less.*


Like those $1000 FX cpu's back in the day? Cheap huh......

Realistically speaking, whoever is on top in performance is going to charge more money. That's just how it works. Obviously there are a few outliers from both companies (pentium EE and the to be released fx9590 or w/e) just to grab attention, but the better performer costs more.

If steamroller does get released and smashes intel well then there goes your budget oriented AMD chips.

As for the OP: I would personally just go for the X79. Because you can get it sooner as well as know the performance you are getting. Chances are steamroller will still be slightly slower than SB-E, and if not, by the time Steamroller is released Intel will have Ivy-E/Haswell-E out anyway to take the crown.

Basically if you are looking for a budget rig, go AMD. If you are looking for the better performer you pretty much have to go Intel. If this were a decade ago I'm sure that statement would be flipped.

Also there are rumors going around that Steamroller might only be released as an APU on socket FM2, obviously just rumors though.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heuchler*
> 
> any source of that. I haven't seen anything official from AMD either way on AM3+ Steamroller.


The Steamroller AM3+ stuff was removed from the desktop roadmap a while ago:

As you can see, Piledriver has been set to run through this whole year in the performance segment with Steamroller being scheduled for an APU. We have known this for a while now and everyone accepts it. Most still think that we will see Steamroller in non-APU next year though.

Unfortunately we also saw the higher performance server area also lose Steamroller cores on multi-socket server systems. Warsaw cores will continue to be Piledriver based and all 1 socket server stuff is moving to APU's and ARM cores. This image is from AMD and was released less than 1 month ago:

So this shows as well there is no high core count Steamroller based CPU in development. Steamroller for server is APU only as well.

We also saw the rumors from OBR saying there will be no Steamroller on AM3+ as well, this was before AMD updated their roadmap's too. He has been pretty accurate with all Bulldozer architecture related things.

I do really hope we see an 8 or even 12 core CPU only for the desktop based on Steamroller, but with rumors from different places saying we wont and AMD removing the processors from their roadmap, as well as there being no server processor variant in development either I would say that hoping for an AM3+ version will be VERY unlikely.


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## TheLAWNOOB

I'm not sure if I fully understood the post above, but I'm sure that AMD will replace all Piledrivers with Steamrollers eventually.

But if the Steamroller is on AM4, will it be compatible with AM3+? Was AM3 compatible with AM2+?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheLAWNOOB*
> 
> I'm not sure if I fully understood the post above, but I'm sure that AMD will replace all Piledrivers with Steamrollers eventually.
> 
> But if the Steamroller is on AM4, will it be compatible with AM3+? Was AM3 compatible with AM2+?


If Steamroller comes out and is on something suck as AM4, it will not be able to drop in to an AM3+ motherboard. If AMD does the same thing as with its other processors then you would be able to take an older AM3+ processor and drop it into the AM4, but not the other way around. However that assumes a few things, such as AMD keeping the same pin count and actually designing it to be backwards compatible with the old processors, and assuming that there would be a new socket board with DDR3 memory slots. One of the reasons there may be to change socket would be the push that will be coming soon for the move to DDR4.


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## riscorpian

The original plan was to get a desktop Steamroller-based CPU (not APU) on the market by the end of the year, but that did change at some point. As has been mentioned before, Steamroller FX isn't expected until Q1–Q2 2014, possibly a bit later. Other information suggests that Excavator should be ready to ship by the end of 2014, and the last update I've seen from AMD about it is that they're still on schedule for that. Perhaps they plan on stretching Piledriver for the server market until at least then, rather than doing a Steamroller refresh? On that note, it's also possible that they're going to do the same with desktop CPU series, and just leave Steamroller for low-power use or APUs only. But still, we just don't know. All we can do is guess and assume until we get some clear information from AMD. Leaked slides and broad statements aren't good enough.


----------



## Heuchler

'Kaveri' is the main focus for AMD right now. HSA, integrate CPU + GPU, unified memory with HuMA.
AMD can't do that with the AM3+ platform. Steamroller is the microarchitecture. We will
see if AMD plans to release a Steamroller based AM3+ processor series.

FM2+ Steamroller based APU (first HSA processors) are scheduled for the end of the year.
While server 'Berlin' (Steamroller based) are coming out 1st half of 2014. So, the 2013 Desktop
Roadmap does not show what AMD has planed for 2014 Desktop users.

AMD is going from GF 32mm SOI to 28mm bulk with a new architecture. Plus Software to take
advantage of the hardware features. Steamroller 30% single core performance might seem
like a lot but HSA could have a much bigger impact than that. That is why I'm willing to go
from AM3+ to FM2+ if the performance justifies it.

AMD should unify the consumer sockets in the future when DDR4 availability would make
introducing a new socket worth it. FM3 or AM4. But the future for AMD is APU. And HSA seems
like the best solution.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> As a follow up to my previous post here, this image shows the main differences that are going to be in this new architecture. So as I said, we arent seeing major design overhauls with crazy things being added. The main difference is in the front end:
> 
> 
> 
> I think by the whole "256-bit memory controller" the poster is getting confused between desktop and server parts. The server G34 socket stuff has been on 256-bit memory controllers for a LONG time, longer than Intel has ever had quad channel memory. This will continue to have the same memory controller as well and is not changing. On the desktop side of things AMD is STILL saying there will not be a Steamroller FX on AM3+ chipset, and that we will see Steamroller APU's on the desktop only. This is where I think the main confusion is for people on the specs of the next gen parts. It is part of the continued push for the HSA stuff AMD is doing and the direction the new CEO is taking the company. I really hope we see a 4 module Steamroller processor on desktop because I would love to upgrade to one, but that will not be released anytime soon if at all. What we are getting is an APU with 2 modules for the CPU.


You have way overstated your case. Nowhere has AMD said there will not be a Steamroller FX AM3+ cpu. Au contraire, they have stated clearly there will be an AM3+ steamroller FX cpu. The question is when, unless they have reversed course in the last 8 months. The final verdict will be known by early November at the latest at the developers Conference or what they are now calling the APU conference. But it is clear that no spokesman from or executive from AMD has said there will be no FX steamroller as you have stated. That is a falsehood .


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You have way overstated your case. Nowhere has AMD said there will not be a Steamroller FX AM3+ cpu. Au contraire, they have stated clearly there will be an AM3+ steamroller FX cpu.


They have stated AM3+ until EX at least. They have hinted at new chipsets though, apparently up to 1090FX. I'm glad to see at least one other person is on top of things


----------



## Seronx

Lawrence Latif isn't a credible source.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Lawrence Latif isn't a credible source.


Who is Lawrence Latif?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Who is Lawrence Latif?


The guy from The Inquirer


----------



## Mombasa69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Kaveri is slated to launch later this year, so I wouldn't expect the desktop counterparts until at least Q1-Q2 2014.
> AMD actually stated that Steamroller is on track as expected, thus your Intel joke is moot. And sure you can own a Ivy Bridge-E for about $1500, which I could build two gaming rigs for that price that will max any game.


ROFL!


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You have way overstated your case. Nowhere has AMD said there will not be a Steamroller FX AM3+ cpu. Au contraire, they have stated clearly there will be an AM3+ steamroller FX cpu. The question is when, unless they have reversed course in the last 8 months. The final verdict will be known by early November at the latest at the developers Conference or what they are now calling the APU conference. But it is clear that no spokesman from or executive from AMD has said there will be no FX steamroller as you have stated. That is a falsehood .


Then what was behind that whole "we are dropping out of the high performance CPU race" thing all about. That was straight from the horse's mouth.
I'd interpret it as no more CPU-only chips past what was already too far down the pipeline (Vishera).

As far as I know, the L3 cache does not benefit FX that much over the APUs in terms of CPU performance. If steamroller is really a 30+% IPC boost, then it should generally far outperform any of the current FX cpus.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Then what was behind that whole "we are dropping out of the high performance CPU race" thing all about. That was straight from the horse's mouth.


No, he never said that. Didn't come close to saying that. That statement was put in the horses' mouth from idiot journalists who took a comment about mobile computing power out of context.

What Rory Read said was: "There's enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today." And he said it in the context of an interview talking about AMD's future products, in which low-power devices and APU's will be a large part of the company's portfolio. The comment was made in the context of a discussion about so-called post-PC era devices. He never said AMD would not make desktop processors anymore. He hardly commented on them because that wasn't what the discussion was about. However, since that interview took place (May 2012), AMD has introduced Vishera, high-end APU's that can match the performance of a low-end FX, and the 9370 and 9590. I would hardly call the effort to market something like the FX-9590 the action of a company that decided to drop out of the CPU race more than a year ago.

Where AMD is not going to compete is in the market space held by Intel's Sandy Bridge-E or other "E-class" products, or in the market space held by their mobile i7's. You're never going to see a "mobile FX" processor in an Alienware gaming laptop, and you won't see workstation-class performance from AMD unless you buy an Opteron.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

To answer the OP's question, the answer is no. It will most likely be out in the spring of 2014.

Off Topic; I am looking forward to seeing AMD become a successful company, both from a performance and financial perspective. But I will most likely be using an Intel Ivy Bridge-E as my primary rig when it comes out.
Right now my AMD rig is just sort of a benchmark/light gaming computer.


----------



## D0ppelganger

We will not see desktop Steamroller processors until 2014.


----------



## Seronx

We will see desktop Steamrollers soon in 2013.


----------



## L4dd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> We will see desktop Steamrollers soon in 2013.


Will they have AM3+ compatibility?

Do you mean Kaveri?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

As far as I know, SR for server and APU in 2013, and SR desktop in 2014 according to their current roadmap


----------



## Cores

^What he said. I sure do hope this long delay will be compensated with much higher performance.


----------



## runs2far

AMD has published a server roadmap that shows Piledriver will be the server core for the rest of 2013 and into 2H 2014.
http://techreport.com/news/24972/amd-announces-arm-based-seattle-chip-for-servers

Steamroller on AM3+ is still in the dark, it will probably arrive but no launch date has been set in stone.

Steamroller for desktop should make a first appearance in Kaveri which has a late 2013 launch date.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> As far as I know, SR for server and APU in 2013, and SR desktop in 2014 according to their current roadmap


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fegelein*
> 
> ^What he said. I sure do hope this long delay will be compensated with much higher performance.


You should actually go and look at AMD's current roadmap. You got the first part right, but the second part of the statement is pure speculation and hopefulness with no basis in fact.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> You should actually go and look at AMD's current roadmap. You got the first part right, but the second part of the statement is pure speculation and hopefulness with no basis in fact.










Source? BRB, getting mine.

No SR on this chart. June 2nd, 2013


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Source? BRB, getting mine.
> 
> No SR on this chart. June 2nd, 2013


You just proved exactly what I said about there being nothing confirmed yet about Steamroller cores in non-APU form starting in 2014.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> You just proved exactly what I said about there being nothing confirmed yet about Steamroller cores in non-APU form starting in 2014.


The point was SR in 2013, which I just disproved. Not being in 2014 is ridiculous, why would they not release a CPU in 2 years? Besides, they announced that it would be out in 2014, just like they said AM3+ until EX.


----------



## EniGma1987

No one was arguing that we wouldnt see Steamroller cores in the Kaveri architecture for an APU, which has been slated for late 2013 launch for a long time. It has also been said multiple times in this thread that we will NOT see Steamroller cores released for AM3+ in 2013. So you arent providing any new info, just speculating about a future thing and calling it fact. Unless I missed it somewhere, AMD has not officially announced that Steamroller will be out on an AM3+ socket with no GPU starting in 2014.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> The point was SR in 2013, which I just disproved. Not being in 2014 is ridiculous, why would they not release a CPU in 2 years? Besides, they announced that it would be out in 2014, just like they said AM3+ until EX.


If AMD decides to not release any new gweneration FX core cpus then no cpu in 2014 would be the logical outcome. That is the big question that we will NOT have an answer to Until the developer's conference in November. That is when the new roadmap for desktop cpu's will be made public by AMD. I think it would be shortsighted of AMD not to release an FX steamroller cpu as it would be great disappointment to its enthusisast base. Sometimes decisions are shortsighted though. Kaveri , while a big step forward for AMD, is not going to be a big boost over the FX 8350, so we will need at least a steamroller-core 8 core cpu to satisfy our performance expectations. The next generation after Kaveri, with Excavator cores, will probably be the death knell for the FX big core cpus.The performance of Excavator core APU's will be good enough combined with HSA architecture to relegate discreet desktop cpus for AMD to the graveyard.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> No one was arguing that we wouldnt see Steamroller cores in the Kaveri architecture for an APU, which has been slated for late 2013 launch for a long time. But again, unless I missed it somewhere AMD has not announced that Steamroller will be out on an AM3+ socket with no GPU starting in 2014.


Here's your AM3+. BRB

I have realized something - since I last viewed the Roadmap that stated SR in 2014 to now, several things have changed. Next gen consoles, their primary fabrication plant changed to 28nm, and they canceled their exclusivity contract with that plant. Still, I wouldn't see them delaying SR to 2015. That would be stupid. It's also stupid how everyone says that AM3+ will end with PD. Yea, release a socket that lasts only 2 years... Smart


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Here's your AM3+. BRB
> 
> I have realized something - since I last viewed the Roadmap that stated SR in 2014 to now, several things have changed. Next gen consoles, their primary fabrication plant changed to 28nm, and they canceled their exclusivity contract with that plant. Still, I wouldn't see them delaying SR to 2015. That would be stupid. It's also stupid how everyone says that AM3+ will end with PD. Yea, release a socket that lasts only 2 years... Smart


Intel releases a socket that lasts 1 year. AM3 has been around for a long time and just had a minor change to become AM3+ to differentiate between generations and to make use of better power configurations. AM3 was a small change from AM2+ to allow for DDR3, which was a very minor change from AM2. AMD has done a lot with this socket and it has lasted a very long time. As for the specific AM3+, 2 years is a perfectly acceptable time to keep it around in CPU generations especially with major architectural changes. I personally believe (although no proof, just makes sense for development and marketing) that we will not see a new socket until excavator cores since it doesn't make sense for AMD to design a new socket and then a year or two later put oout yet another new one with Excavator and DDR4 support.

No one ever said anything about Steamroller being delayed until 2015 and I dont know why you would make that assumption, we simply dont know if we will see a specific AM3+ variant without a GPU in 2014. Everyone kinda assumes it will happen since "why not?", but there is more and more evidence as time goes by that we actually wont see this happen. We wont know for sure either way though until November as the poster above you said.

Also, your "source" is not a confirmation of anything, it simply makes assumptions about Steamroller based on what AMD said. It was also a long time ago and AMD has since updated product roadmaps to remove the everything based on a Steamroller core that doesnt have a GPU. The article sites "The Inquirer" as to the information. If you read the article at The Inquirer you see nothing about Steamroller is ever said by AMD, only assumed from the author, and the author of said article has been very wrong about things in the past.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

So, Intel just released a new socket for Haswell, will they release a new socket in 2014 for DDR4? Then would AMD follow suit and bump to the next socket? SR isn't a new architecture, it's a revision. From BD to EX it is all steps to improve the original CPU structure.
As for you saying that no one said anything about it being delayed to 2015, that is what you are saying. But trying to argue that it might not be released in 2014 means it would be pushed back another year. If it isn't released in 2014, then it will be very late 2013, otherwise - that is suicide for AMD. Going that long with no new CPU's would mean less sales while having operation costs. I'm not going into business, but we all know how stupid that would be.
About the source, I overlooked that - I was extremely tired, and I apologize for that.
Last, I forgot to include the fact that I think they pulled all the road maps for desktop CPU's, and having 50 maps involving the SR based Opterons doesn't help the search.

Now, they may release AM4+, but there would be AM3+ compatibility. Just like the Athlon/Phenom with AM3/AM2+. All this only makes sense, I couldn't see AMD making people wait an extra year - on top of the initial delay.


----------



## computerparts

I'm all for Steamroller not being on AM3+. They need to cut backwards compatibility already. Hyper Transport 3.0 is 7 years old. They aren't even using Hyper transport 3.1 which has been available for the past 5 years.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> So, Intel just released a new socket for Haswell, will they release a new socket in 2014 for DDR4? Then would AMD follow suit and bump to the next socket? SR isn't a new architecture, it's a revision. From BD to EX it is all steps to improve the original CPU structure.
> As for you saying that no one said anything about it being delayed to 2015, that is what you are saying. But trying to argue that it might not be released in 2014 means it would be pushed back another year. If it isn't released in 2014, then it will be very late 2013, otherwise - that is suicide for AMD. Going that long with no new CPU's would mean less sales while having operation costs. I'm not going into business, but we all know how stupid that would be.
> About the source, I overlooked that - I was extremely tired, and I apologize for that.
> Last, I forgot to include the fact that I think they pulled all the road maps for desktop CPU's, and having 50 maps involving the SR based Opterons doesn't help the search.
> 
> Now, they may release AM4+, but there would be AM3+ compatibility. Just like the Athlon/Phenom with AM3/AM2+. All this only makes sense, I couldn't see AMD making people wait an extra year - on top of the initial delay.


DDR4 will make its debut on LGA2011-3 along with haswell-E in late 2014 or early 2015.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> DDR4 will make its debut on LGA2011-3 along with haswell-E in late 2014 or early 2015.


DDR4 will appear for Haswell-E in 2014 and Skylake(Mainstream) in 2015.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L4dd*
> 
> Will they have AM3+ compatibility?


No.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L4dd*
> 
> Do you mean Kaveri?


Yes, Kaveri is the Desktop, Mobile, 1P Server part. Where the SR cores being described as desktop in this thread are not desktop. The server Steamroller will be FX, Opteron, and will support discrete hUMA.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Yes, Kaveri is the Desktop, Mobile, 1P Server part. Where the SR cores being described as desktop in this thread are not desktop. The server Steamroller will be FX, Opteron, and will support discrete hUMA.


I heard the same myself, AMD is pushing for their APU's to take over their mainstream market. And are going to dedicate FX chips more towards servers and high end consumers. Which is perfectly fine with me, I can nearly max any game out on my A10-6800k at stock and HD 5870 at stock. Add another 30% in core performance into the mix, no sense in buying an FX processor for me. I will just get the Athlon X4 variant with the iGPU disabled when Steamroller comes around. Overclock it to 5.0 GHz and enjoy 60+ FPS in any game without spending more than $100 on a processor.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> I heard the same myself, AMD is pushing for their APU's to take over their mainstream market. And are going to dedicate FX chips more towards servers and high end consumers. Which is perfectly fine with me, I can nearly max any game out on my A10-6800k at stock and HD 5870 at stock. Add another 30% in core performance into the mix, no sense in buying an FX processor for me. I will just get the Athlon X4 variant with the iGPU disabled when Steamroller comes around. Overclock it to 5.0 GHz and enjoy 60+ FPS in any game without spending more than $100 on a processor.


That may work for you on low res stuff, but I play on a 1440p 120Hz monitor and an APU cant even come close to 60 fps average (let alone minimum) for me. Add on top that I would prefer to run 16x AF and 8x AA still and even my GTX 670 and FX-6300 couldnt even do it. I had to get a second GPU to come close to the kind of performance and visuals I am after. Id still like to have a much better 8-core CPU to help things along but I am trying to hold off on just buying an 8-core Vishera until November when we will know one way or another if we will see an 8-core Steamroller FX processor or not.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> That may work for you on low res stuff, but I play on a 1440p 120Hz monitor and an APU cant even come close to 60 fps average (let alone minimum) for me. Add on top that I would prefer to run 16x AF and 8x AA still and even my GTX 670 and FX-6300 couldnt even do it. I had to get a second GPU to come close to the kind of performance and visuals I am after. Id still like to have a much better 8-core CPU to help things along but I am trying to hold off on just buying an 8-core Vishera until November when we will know one way or another if we will see an 8-core Steamroller FX processor or not.


I think you're pretty skeptic of how much power APU's actually have, I will tell you this much there isn't any game that my APU cant handle. I can run BF3 on high preset above 60 FPS (average 90 FPS) at 1080p. I don't see there being any problem with Steamroller being capable of maxing out games when current gen APU's already can. I can also run GTA IV maxed out (including AF & AA) butter smooth. If you wan't the extra horsepower the FX lineup will still be there, for me AA just increases input lag so I never use it (its not worth having on as the visual difference is moot). If I can get a CPU that will run any game on the market maxed out for under $99, then there's no reason for me to dump $200 into an eight core. If you're looking for frames above 120, then you should of moved to Intel a long time ago. I don't see how an Athlon X4 is going to be holding me back. Especially with the +30% in core performance Steamroller is suppose to bring. My current APU can already do it, 90 FPS is good with me.


----------



## Dynamo11

I'm in the worst position for this. My PC recently went kaput and I wanted to upgrade immediately to AM3+ but what's the point if I get that and, within a month, AMD say that Steamroller will be on AM4 meaning I completely missed the boat. I never had this problem when I got my AM2 stuff


----------



## Seronx

How kaput is it?
---
2014-2015:
GC36 -> New Socket, replaces G3x
GC34 -> New Socket, replaces C3x and AMx

2015-2016:
HM1 -> New Socket, replaces FMx

HM1 is an assumed named, reason:
Fusion System Architecture -> Heterogeneous System Architecture.

Since all platforms are planned to have four DDR channels or more by the end of 2015, new sockets are mostly all required.


----------



## Dynamo11

The Mobo died and the CPU was really starting to fall behind, so I figured I'd just retire my PC (it's 5 years old anyway) and start again with all new components. If my board had survived I would have just got a Phenom X4 965 BE or look for a 1090T/1100T and waited for DDR4 but I need my PC as soon as and there's little point getting old parts when I could be waiting for a while to upgrade


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> I'm in the worst position for this. My PC recently went kaput and I wanted to upgrade immediately to AM3+ but what's the point if I get that and, within a month, AMD say that Steamroller will be on AM4 meaning I completely missed the boat. I never had this problem when I got my AM2 stuff


Where are you getting this garbage from??? Steamroller if it releases in an FX desktop format will be on AM3+. Beyond steamroller another socket will take over as seronx outlines.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Where are you getting this garbage from??? Steamroller if it releases in an FX desktop format will be on AM3+. Beyond steamroller another socket will take over as seronx outlines.


What was going to happen =>
Piledriver/Steamroller -> AM3+ / 1090FX/1070

That was cancelled pre-2013.

Kaveri "Athlons" will be as fast as FX-8xx0 series, while being slightly slower than the FX-9xx0 series. Overall, FM2+ replaces AM3+ as a platform.
Warsaw might bring FX to the server platform for G34+/pre-GC34. This will lead to BigCPU and BigAPU on 22-nm FD-SOI/Gate Last for GC34 and GC36.


----------



## Cores

Seronx, who is your source?


----------



## Poisoner

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fegelein*
> 
> Seronx, who is your source?


He just makes it up as he goes along. You should see the stuff he makes up on semiaccurate.


----------



## Dynamo11

Even if he's making it up I can actually see a lot of truth in what he says. It's clear AMD are putting all their eggs in the APu basket and with APUs getting more and more powerful it wouldn't surprise me if they dropped the FX chips within 3-4 years


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> What was going to happen =>
> Piledriver/Steamroller -> AM3+ / 1090FX/1070
> 
> That was cancelled pre-2013.
> 
> Kaveri "Athlons" will be as fast as FX-8xx0 series, while being slightly slower than the FX-9xx0 series. Overall, FM2+ replaces AM3+ as a platform.
> Warsaw might bring FX to the server platform for G34+/pre-GC34. This will lead to BigCPU and BigAPU on 22-nm FD-SOI/Gate Last for GC34 and GC36.


You are conjecturing, not stating fact. AMD may well be heading quickly in that direction, but are you telling me that the FX brand is being eliminated on the desktop? Having a server FX means nothing if it is not available on a desktop motherboard. Server corporate customers could care less about FX. It is a consumer brand for enthusiasts. You are stating that AMD is abandoning their enthusiast base. That would be a poor decision.Enthusiasts are not going to be swarming to FM2+ steamroller as it is a lateral move performance-wise,. It would be possible for excavator, that could be the time enthusiasts come on board. But there are no offerings that you mention that bridge that gap. The FX 9000 are a mistepped offering. I can do that with my current not so good chip with abetter cooling solution. It is way overpriced and doesn't overclock well. Too much power consumption as well.


----------



## Seronx

I think you guys need your eyes checked or something. You are pretty blind or don't read what I type.

*So, X79/LGA2011 is not a enthusiast desktop platform?* Okay if you say no it isn't, I understand GC34 isn't a desktop platform for you. Even though it will be marketed as such for enthusiasts for Quad SLI/Quad Crossfire with hUMA.


----------



## riscorpian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I think you guys need your eyes checked or something. You are pretty blind or don't read what I type.


You're making some pretty bold claims that go against a lot of information we already have, yet not providing any type of source to back any of it up. I'm not saying you're totally wrong or anything, but you're stating what looks to be an opinion as if it were an undeniable fact. It's a little hard to take that seriously if you don't have a credible source to give it some water.

Anyway, I haven't seen any official statement from AMD stating that Steamroller FX was officially canceled. Until we see some kind of press release that confirms it, I think it's pretty safe to assume that a dedicated Steamroller-based FX chip will exist. And we can bet that it's going to be AM3+ because AMD has stated that the socket will have at least one more round of chips. I doubt the FX-9xxx series counts for that since it's so obviously a marketing stunt.


----------



## PontiacGTX

It will be on sell during first half of 2014


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *riscorpian*
> 
> And we can bet that it's going to be AM3+ because AMD has stated that the socket will have at least one more round of chips. I doubt the FX-9xxx series counts for that since it's so obviously a marketing stunt.


and maybe the "there will be one more round of chips on AM3+" was a marketing stunt as well to get people to buy more of the AM3+ boards in the hope that Steamroller is coming. I'm not saying AMD are purposefully playing the market but they are being suspiciously quiet. We can all just hope they announce something the same time as the AMD 8XXX Series GPUs


----------



## riscorpian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> and maybe the "there will be one more round of chips on AM3+" was a marketing stunt as well to get people to buy more of the AM3+ boards in the hope that Steamroller is coming. I'm not saying AMD are purposefully playing the market but they are being suspiciously quiet. We can all just hope they announce something the same time as the AMD 8XXX Series GPUs


There's a difference between a marketing stunt and a blatant lie. Although it is possible that they were referring to the FX-9XXX chips from the start. As you said, they are being pretty quiet right now. None of us can really be sure what they were planning on that.

My bet is that they'll reveal more Kaveri details later this year, and news about the Radeon 9XXX series will come along with it (I'd be willing to bet money that we'll never see an RHD8970 or the likes available for purchase at this point). With details on both of those, some information about what's next in the pipeline should start to surface. Maybe. That's the best speculation I can come up with at this point.


----------



## Dynamo11

Ah well, I'll just have to bite the bullet and get an 8320 on AM3+ and just hope that Steamroller is on AM3+ as well. If not then, well that's the gamble with fast moving tech especially in regards to PC tech


----------



## os2wiz

I had a detailed telephone conversation with an AMD executive from Austin a month ago about these questions. He was careful to avoid preannouncing any new release with a timeframe. He did state unequivocally the new roadmap will be clear late in October or at the very latest the developer's conference in November.


----------



## computerparts

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *riscorpian*
> 
> You're making some pretty bold claims that go against a lot of information we already have, yet not providing any type of source to back any of it up. I'm not saying you're totally wrong or anything, but you're stating what looks to be an opinion as if it were an undeniable fact. It's a little hard to take that seriously if you don't have a credible source to give it some water.
> 
> Anyway, I haven't seen any official statement from AMD stating that Steamroller FX was officially canceled. Until we see some kind of press release that confirms it, I think it's pretty safe to assume that a dedicated Steamroller-based FX chip will exist. And we can bet that it's going to be AM3+ because AMD has stated that the socket will have at least one more round of chips. I doubt the FX-9xxx series counts for that since it's so obviously a marketing stunt.


For all we know, the FX 9 series could have indeed been that last round of chips for AM3+. It makes sense when you think about it. They removed AM3+ Steamroller from the roadmap. Ever since then, there has been no indication whatsoever of Steamroller being on AM3+.


----------



## riscorpian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *computerparts*
> 
> For all we know, the FX 9 series could have indeed been that last round of chips for AM3+. It makes sense when you think about it. They removed AM3+ Steamroller from the roadmap. Ever since then, there has been no indication whatsoever of Steamroller being on AM3+.


True. But on the other hand, I haven't seen a consumer roadmap for 2014 yet. Yeah, we have the 2013-2014 server roadmap, but the consumer one only goes through the end of '13. Steamroller FX was only removed from that one, which pretty much just mirrors what we've all suspected for a while. The earliest estimates I remember seeing for Steamroller's appearance was "late 2013 to early 2014." We already know that Kaveri is going to meet that goal, but there just isn't a clear roadmap out there detailing what we can expect after that. Let's hope os2wiz's contact was right and we'll see more information on this later in the year.


----------



## D0ppelganger

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *computerparts*
> 
> For all we know, the FX 9 series could have indeed been that last round of chips for AM3+. It makes sense when you think about it. They removed AM3+ Steamroller from the roadmap. Ever since then, there has been no indication whatsoever of Steamroller being on AM3+.


This is all bologna and speculation. Steamroller is going to be the last processor on the AM3+ socket, as has been stated by AMD since day one.. Just because they don't have a clear roadmap of release dates for SR doesn't mean its hopping sockets all of a sudden. People should stop spreading rumors and starting nonsense debates.


----------



## Seronx

Pre-2012:
AM3+ -> FM2 -> FM2+

Orochi(8-core)/Bulldozer -> Viperfish(10-core)/Piledriver -> Viperfish(10-core)/Steamroller

Post-2012:
AM3+ -> AM3+ -> AM3+ -> GC34

Orochi(8-core)/Bulldozer -> Orochi(8-core)/Piledriver -> Orochi(8-core)/R. Piledriver -> Basilisk?(16-core/20-core)/Steamroller
*
FX Roadmaps*

R. Piledriver = Richland Piledriver, Richland has more Thermal Entities. Which allows for a more fine-grained temperature based Turbo Core 3.0.


----------



## chromejaguar

don't know if this question fits around here.. but will socket fm2 die like the fm1 did? will we be able to use new "kaveri?" chips on them? if yes you think only higher end chipset mbs will have a bios update?
danke


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chromejaguar*
> 
> don't know if this question fits around here.. but will socket fm2 die like the fm1 did? will we be able to use new "kaveri?" chips on them? if yes you think only higher end chipset mbs will have a bios update?
> danke


Kaveri chips will require FM2+ to work. It will not work on regular FM2 boards.

However you can use trinity and richland parts on FM2+


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *riscorpian*
> 
> True. But on the other hand, I haven't seen a consumer roadmap for 2014 yet. Yeah, we have the 2013-2014 server roadmap, but the consumer one only goes through the end of '13. Steamroller FX was only removed from that one, which pretty much just mirrors what we've all suspected for a while. The earliest estimates I remember seeing for Steamroller's appearance was "late 2013 to early 2014." We already know that Kaveri is going to meet that goal, but there just isn't a clear roadmap out there detailing what we can expect after that. Let's hope os2wiz's contact was right and we'll see more information on this later in the year.


AMD has done it before, to launch a new microarch on mobile/APU front first. It happened with piledriver ,Trinity came on mobile around late spring of 2012, and on desktop next autumn.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I don't think there is ANY desktop roadmap leaked-if there was we'd know if FX steamroller is coming or not.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Until APU's get the features that the FX CPU's have they are simply not an option for anyone with a GTX 660 / 7850 or above as those missing features mean they just don't have the horse power.

APU's 'may' replace the FX chips eventually, but for now and the near future APU's are simple not good enough for 90% of gamers looking at AMD CPU's


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Until APU's get the features that the FX CPU's have they are simply not an option for anyone with a GTX 660 / 7850 or above as those missing features means they just don't have the horse power.
> 
> APU's 'may' replace the FX chips eventually, but for now and the near future APU's are simple not good enough for 90% of gamers looking at AMD CPU's


The only thing missing from AMD's APU's is L3 cache. Otherwise the cores and architecture is exactly the same. My A10-6800k is pretty much a FX-4350 with the base clock set to 4.1 and the turbo set to 4.4, minus the L3 cache. With the addition of a graphics core. There's not much I cant do that's CPU bound with my machine, and that's when running a discrete HD 5870 with it (slightly faster than the HD 7850). In games that do support quad cores, my APU handles them perfectly. I see 93-99% GPU utilization in Battlefield 3 with everything stock. Steamroller is suppose to be 30% faster clock for clock, so even 7870's and 7950's wont be bottlenecked by Kaveri in games that support at least quad core. This is why they may eventually rule out the FX lineup. We may see a six core APU with Kaveri, I have my doubts but its still a possibility. If we don't there will be one eventually as AMD moves down the scale with their manufacturing process. Once they free up enough die space they will add more cores (something AMD is notorious for, with good reason). I'm personally eager to get my hands on one, and have full HSA support. When HSA applications start flooding the market, owning one of these will be worth having more than a FX. As in many workloads these APU's will beat the highest end FX in number crunching. My current A10-6800k is capable of over 600 GFLOPS all by itself, and Kaveri is slated for 1 TFLOPS. Now before people say "well I already own a GTX 660", the point is you're not limited by PCIe bandwidth. Plus you could be gaming, and crunching numbers at the same exact time using the iGPU as a co-processor as its intended. When AMD built the APU, they didn't have just gaming in mind. They seen the possibilities of having an onboard GPU to work in parallel with the CPU.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I'm not going to lie, I'm being very optimistic here, but my thoughts on why there is no big Steamroller server chip is that AMD is bailing on the server market. I (hope) that AMD will be doing the following
> 
> Shifting focus from their 4m/8c chips from server to desktop and filling that hole in with microservers and APUs..
> 
> If you'll remember, Bulldozer was originally a "server chip first" and a desktop chip second, which is why it does so well in multi-thread yet so poorly in single thread. Web server loads are generally highly threaded. By shifting their plans from server chips turning into desktop gaming chips, they could just simply release the chip as a desktop chip instead and design it around what gaming chips want. It would mean AMD could make a chip that focused more on floating point performance as opposed to integer performance, which would help games out a ton. Right now, as it stands, AMD has a chip designed for servers trying to play games. It has weak single thread, great multi-thread, and poor floating point performance per core compared to the competition. Those problems come directly from AMD designing Bulldozer modules to be server-oriented.
> 
> So it only makes sense that AMD would break away from that if they want to sell chips to gamers, enthusiasts, and everyone else in that segment which is being abandoned by Intel.
> 
> Realistically they'd have Jaguar for low power/module to compete with ARM/Atom, left over 12/16core Piledriver to compete on multi-thread server, and then a gaming/desktop oriented chip for desktop users. And because AMD is shifting to their "building blocks" style of designing chips, they could handle a broad range of product segments by re-using IP across different segements. Ergo steamroller core is designed, it ends up in 4 and 2 "core" APU designs, an 8 core FX. Jaguar ends up in mobile, microservers, and ITX-like devices.
> 
> It would give AMD a huge advantage over Intel as Intel seems to be simply designing one core and filling it in product segments where it doesn't belong (I'm referring directly to Haswell 4670k and 4770k in case you're not picking that up).
> 
> I should re-iterate, the problem with your argument is that you're appealing to tradition and assuming that since AMD has traditionally turned their server chips into desktop chips that they'll continue to do so. The second problem is that the strategy is not working for AMD and you're assuming that AMD will continue to do the same failing strategy.


All these are good and I agree for the most part but the question remains: Is it viable for AMD to make a desktop octocore without selling it on server side as well? Is it just GloFo being unable to provide enough 28nm material for both APU and FX/Opterons this year? Or did AMD just accept defeat ,went on to offer piledriver refresh Opterons to existing customers just before packing up and leaving high end x86 server market? If that's the case, is AMD gonna offer anything more than dual module staff on the desktop or do they see it as a declining segment? We need the desktop roadmap to know for sure. Until then it is speculation.

If Steamroller is the thing that was described around 10-12 months ago (front end/decoders/μcache etc) it is a step forward of course but it will mean that AMD will have at very best an i5 competitor on the desktop and a cpu that still can't compete with mobile quite i7s on laptop. Such a chip would probably fall short vs current vishera hexas and octos in multithreaded apps as well. They are leaving behind a good chunk of their market share without a fight, If that's the case.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The only thing missing from AMD's APU's is L3 cache. Otherwise the cores and architecture is exactly the same. My A10-6800k is pretty much a FX-4350 with the base clock set to 4.1 and the turbo set to 4.4, minus the L3 cache. With the addition of a graphics core. There's not much I cant do that's CPU bound with my machine, and that's when running a discrete HD 5870 with it (slightly faster than the HD 7850). In games that do support quad cores, my APU handles them perfectly. I see 93-99% GPU utilization in Battlefield 3 with everything stock. Steamroller is suppose to be 30% faster clock for clock, so even 7870's and 7950's wont be bottlenecked by Kaveri in games that support at least quad core. This is why they may eventually rule out the FX lineup. We may see a six core APU with Kaveri, I have my doubts but its still a possibility. If we don't there will be one eventually as AMD moves down the scale with their manufacturing process. Once they free up enough die space they will add more cores (something AMD is notorious for, with good reason). I'm personally eager to get my hands on one, and have full HSA support. When HSA applications start flooding the market, owning one of these will be worth having more than a FX. As in many workloads these APU's will beat the highest end FX in number crunching. My current A10-6800k is capable of over 600 GFLOPS all by itself, and Kaveri is slated for 1 TFLOPS. Now before people say "well I already own a GTX 660", the point is you're not limited by PCIe bandwidth. Plus you could be gaming, and crunching numbers at the same exact time using the iGPU as a co-processor as its intended. When AMD built the APU, they didn't have just gaming in mind. They seen the possibilities of having an onboard GPU to work in parallel with the CPU.


Fine but you still haven't answered my question. Kaveri will only be equivalent to a piledriver FX in performance. It would be a lateral transfer for FX-8350 owners. That means there is no immediate incentive to switch over when you have to buy another mothetboard and cpu and thete is not enough pci-express lanes to get full dual or triple Crossfire performance. I have 2 Radeon HD 7950s so I need a motherboard and cpu that adequately support them. So what are FX enthusiasts to be offered over the next 18 months until a migration to Excavator is more likely?


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Fine but you still haven't answered my question. Kaveri will only be equivalent to a piledriver FX in performance. It would be a lateral transfer for FX-8350 owners. That means there is no immediate incentive to switch over when you have to buy another mothetboard and cpu and thete is not enough pci-express lanes to get full dual or triple Crossfire performance. I have 2 Radeon HD 7950s so I need a motherboard and cpu that adequately support them. So what are FX enthusiasts to be offered over the next 18 months until a migration to Excavator is more likely?


It's called the Centurion.







They can always drop the price.

But you answer you question, AMD has largely already lost he enthusiast desktop market, especially the most profitable high end part of it. Given their position, I can understand why it was abandoned.

AMD understands that APUs are its future for PC computing. We AMD PC gamers are going to be left out in the _cold_. Which I'm fine with because I can increase my overclocking as a result.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Fine but you still haven't answered my question. Kaveri will only be equivalent to a piledriver FX in performance. It would be a lateral transfer for FX-8350 owners. That means there is no immediate incentive to switch over when you have to buy another mothetboard and cpu and thete is not enough pci-express lanes to get full dual or triple Crossfire performance. I have 2 Radeon HD 7950s so I need a motherboard and cpu that adequately support them. So what are FX enthusiasts to be offered over the next 18 months until a migration to Excavator is more likely?


An alleged 30% boost in single threaded performance will only put kaveri at the level of the current fx's?

I believe Kaveri uses 8 of its 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes to connect to the southbridge. One of the FM2+ motherboards has two x16 slots (x8/x8 electrical) for the remaining 16 lanes. Intel uses a similar setup and seems to do just fine.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I believe Kaveri uses 8 of its 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes to connect to the southbridge. One of the FM2+ motherboards has two x16 slots (x8/x8 electrical) for the remaining 16 lanes. Intel uses a similar setup and seems to do just fine.


Kaveri has 20 PCIe lanes.
2*8 for GFX_0/GFX_1
1*4 for UMI

The FCH has 4*1 PCI-e lanes. Giving a total of 20 PCIe lanes for the system to be used as expansion slots.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> There would be too much blow back from users who have invested inn AM3+ motherboards based on past AMD statements.


+1

2 generations just to be forced off... Definitely the price champion


----------



## Cores

For those arguing about the roadmap...


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fegelein*
> 
> For those arguing about the roadmap...


Seems legit.


----------



## Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Seems legit.


If you doubt the legitimacy of the email, you can always email them yourself. Garry Silcott's email is available publicly on AMD's site.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri has 20 PCIe lanes.
> 2*8 for GFX_0/GFX_1
> 1*4 for UMI
> 
> The FCH has 4*1 PCI-e lanes. Giving a total of 20 PCIe lanes for the system to be used as expansion slots.


Llano and trinity had 24. Kaveri has less? Why?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Llano and trinity had 24. Kaveri has less? Why?


Llano and Trinity both have 20 PCI-e lanes.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The only thing missing from AMD's APU's is L3 cache. Otherwise the cores and architecture is exactly the same. My A10-6800k is pretty much a FX-4350 with the base clock set to 4.1 and the turbo set to 4.4, minus the L3 cache. With the addition of a graphics core. There's not much I cant do that's CPU bound with my machine, and that's when running a discrete HD 5870 with it (slightly faster than the HD 7850). In games that do support quad cores, my APU handles them perfectly. I see 93-99% GPU utilization in Battlefield 3 with everything stock. Steamroller is suppose to be 30% faster clock for clock, so even 7870's and 7950's wont be bottlenecked by Kaveri in games that support at least quad core. This is why they may eventually rule out the FX lineup. We may see a six core APU with Kaveri, I have my doubts but its still a possibility. If we don't there will be one eventually as AMD moves down the scale with their manufacturing process. Once they free up enough die space they will add more cores (something AMD is notorious for, with good reason). I'm personally eager to get my hands on one, and have full HSA support. When HSA applications start flooding the market, owning one of these will be worth having more than a FX. As in many workloads these APU's will beat the highest end FX in number crunching. My current A10-6800k is capable of over 600 GFLOPS all by itself, and Kaveri is slated for 1 TFLOPS. Now before people say "well I already own a GTX 660", the point is you're not limited by PCIe bandwidth. Plus you could be gaming, and crunching numbers at the same exact time using the iGPU as a co-processor as its intended. When AMD built the APU, they didn't have just gaming in mind. They seen the possibilities of having an onboard GPU to work in parallel with the CPU.


No L3 does stunt performance significantly, If AMD want to fall even more behind Intel then what they should do is remove L3 from all CPU's.

Now i'm happy to criticise AMD for a lot of silly things they did in the past _Bulldozer Cough Bulldozer Cough...._ but some how i doubt they are that stupid.

I welcome an APU with L3 and HSA, when that time comes there is no need for an FX chip, it would just be an APU without HSA and an iGPU, when the time comes (as you say) they are able to add L3 to APU's then i have no doubt AMD will drop what we know as today FX CPU's.

Its just not going to happen soon, is all i'm saying.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Llano and Trinity both have 20 PCI-e lanes.


Trinity:


Really?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> No L3 does stunt performance significantly, If AMD want to fall even more behind Intel then what they should do is remove L3 from all CPU's.
> 
> Now i'm happy to criticise AMD for a lot of silly things they did in the past _Bulldozer Cough Bulldozer Cough...._ but some how i doubt they are that stupid.
> 
> I welcome an APU with L3 and HSA, when that time comes there is no need for an FX chip, it would just be an APU without HSA and an iGPU, when the time comes (as you say) they are able to add L3 to APU's then i have no doubt AMD will drop what we know as today FX CPU's.
> 
> Its just not going to happen soon, is all i'm saying.


Think they somewhat compensate for this by having very large L2 caches.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Really?


2*8 PCIe Lanes for GFX_0/GFX_1.
4*1 PCIe lanes for GPP.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fegelein*
> 
> For those arguing about the roadmap...


Sadly that doesn't say anything, AM3+ will be "available for years to come". Meaning: We'll keep making them for suckers willing to buy a dying platform.









Don't get me wrong, I'm an AM3+ owner, I'm hoping they surprise us with some good news on the AM3+ front.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fegelein*
> 
> If you doubt the legitimacy of the email, you can always email them yourself. Garry Silcott's email is available publicly on AMD's site.



Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> No L3 does stunt performance significantly, If AMD want to fall even more behind Intel then what they should do is remove L3 from all CPU's.
> 
> Now i'm happy to criticise AMD for a lot of silly things they did in the past _Bulldozer Cough Bulldozer Cough...._ but some how i doubt they are that stupid.
> 
> I welcome an APU with L3 and HSA, when that time comes there is no need for an FX chip, it would just be an APU without HSA and an iGPU, when the time comes (as you say) they are able to add L3 to APU's then i have no doubt AMD will drop what we know as today FX CPU's.
> 
> Its just not going to happen soon, is all i'm saying.


Lack of L3 does in fact hinder performance. Tho what I am saying is even Steamroller based APU's should be enough to max any game on the market as long as you have a fast enough discrete GPU. The years of AMD not being able to game as good as they did back during Phenom II is coming to an end. Steamroller will be the first giant leap forward away from Bulldozer. Like said in my previous post, there is not a game on the market that my machine cant handle. And that's rocking the current flagship APU (A10-6800k) and a four year old GPU (HD 5870). AMD doesn't plan on ditching the FX enthusiast platform any time soon, as they have to wait and see how well HSA is adapted by software developers. Who knows, by this time next year almost every application on the consumer market could be HSA accelerated. Even if half of the applications are, the FX series will no longer be the "monsters" in AMD's arsenal.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 2*8 PCIe Lanes for GFX_0/GFX_1.
> 4*1 PCIe lanes for GPP.


The slide I posted says 24 PCIe lanes for trinity.

I'd bet anything that if the 30% IPC gain (on average, over a set of real word benches) pans out, then kaveri will generally outperform all previous amd processors in games. Anyone with me?
But yes, if you use a lot of heavily multithreaded apps then kaveri will not be an upgrade.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> 
> Lack of L3 does in fact hinder performance. Tho what I am saying is even Steamroller based APU's should be enough to max any game on the market as long as you have a fast enough discrete GPU. The years of AMD not being able to game as good as they did back during Phenom II is coming to an end. Steamroller will be the first giant leap forward away from Bulldozer. Like said in my previous post, there is not a game on the market that my machine cant handle. And that's rocking the current flagship APU (A10-6800k) and a four year old GPU (HD 5870). AMD doesn't plan on ditching the FX enthusiast platform any time soon, as they have to wait and see how well HSA is adapted by software developers. Who knows, by this time next year almost every application on the consumer market could be HSA accelerated. Even if half of the applications are, the FX series will no longer be the "monsters" in AMD's arsenal.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

The APU will become the mainstream market and FX cores will be used in servers. I don't even know why this is an argument.

*FACT*
The Steamroller cores will be in the APU first in late 2013, and then in the FX series mid 2014.

*FACT*
I haven't the slightest clue why people think of the APU as a lesser to the FX series. Both use the same cores the only difference being a lower TDP and a amazing IGP.

This is all information that we already know, and we can all anyone with a little business sense can figure out why AMD is dropping out of the 'Enthusiast' market, as they are no competition for the X79/LGA 2011 market. They are however in a great place right now, as they are becoming more in tune with the needs of the general consumer, (low TDP and great IGP) who doesn't have a clue about the stuff we are talking about now which is a much larger market.

IMO I think this thread should have been closed a long time ago.


----------



## darkelixa

So I would be better to buy a apu instead of a 8350?


----------



## riscorpian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> The APU will become the mainstream market and FX cores will be used in servers. I don't even know why this is an argument.
> 
> *FACT*
> The Steamroller cores will be in the APU first in late 2013, and then in the FX series mid 2014.
> 
> *FACT*
> I haven't the slightest clue why people think of the APU as a lesser to the FX series. Both use the same cores the only difference being a lower TDP and a amazing IGP.
> 
> This is all information that we already know, and we can all anyone with a little business sense can figure out why AMD is dropping out of the 'Enthusiast' market, as they are no competition for the X79/LGA 2011 market. They are however in a great place right now, as they are becoming more in tune with the needs of the general consumer, (low TDP and great IGP) who doesn't have a clue about the stuff we are talking about now which is a much larger market.
> 
> IMO I think this thread should have been closed a long time ago.


Those aren't facts. They are assumptions and opinions.

As has been stated many times before, the FX series is an enthusiast line, not one for servers. That would be the Opteron line. I don't understand why it's an argument either. To say that FX will transfer to servers sounds pretty ridiculous, and I have yet to see any evidence that even remotely supports that.

Today's news has also nearly confirmed a Kaveri delay, so it's not a guarantee that we'll see the Steamroller APU until February 2014. There is also no confirmation that Steamroller FX will exist at all, but it's pretty strongly implied. Again, not a fact. There isn't any hard evidence to back it up.

No, APUs and FX are not one and the same. An APU has two modules while FX can have up to four. Those four extra cores give a large boost to multithreaded performance. And why would anyone interested in an FX in the first place care about good IGP? This is the line for people relying on discrete graphics. I would happily trade an amazing IGP for more cores. I'd get way more use out of that.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> So I would be better to buy a apu instead of a 8350?


For modern PC gaming, no, a 8350 would be a better option (obvious paired with a decent GPU). But for an inexpensive PC, possibly.


----------



## darkelixa

Im using a gigabyte 2gb 770 gtx as the main card


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Im using a gigabyte 2gb 770 gtx as the main card


Get the 8350 then


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Im using a gigabyte 2gb 770 gtx as the main card


Or an 8320 and OC it. Also 6300 is a good less expensive option again if you are OC'ing.


----------



## darkelixa

Id like the higher clock speed to start with


----------



## anubis44

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *neo0031*
> 
> So you guys are saying the Steamroller would be.... a "Tick" in Intel speak?


No, Vishera was a 'tick' on Bulldozer. Steamroller is most definitely supposed to be a 'tock'. Significant architectural changes to the cores. Not to mention Jim Keller came back to AMD last August, so it's possible he's been mucking around with it and asked for a bit more time to get it right. In case you don't know, Jim Keller designed the AMD Athlon (K7) and significant portions of the Athlon 64 (K8). He also had a major hand in designing x86-64 instructions. The guy is a processor engineering genius, so I'm kind of stoked to see just how well Steamroller runs.


----------



## anubis44

The FX-6350 is also a decent gaming chip for the money - higher base clock rate (3.9GHz) than FX-6300 and can overclock well, too.


----------



## darkelixa

The stores in aus dont sell 6350s


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Id like the higher clock speed to start with


You can always get the FX-6350 before 7/31 for $129, which makes it only $10 more than the FX-6300. And it comes "factory overclocked" as I would put it. Or you can spend the extra $20 over the retail price of the FX-6350 and buy a FX-8320. Then you can just overclock it to 4.0 GHz and it will be an effective FX-8350 for $40 less. If price isn't an issue then FX-8350 all the way.

Edit: If AUS stores don't sell the FX-6350, the FX-6300 is the same thing just with lower clocks. You can easily overclock it to 4.2 GHz and it will spank a stock FX-6350. Just make sure you have a quality board (6+2 phase at least with mosfet cooling), and a decent CPU cooling unit.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anubis44*
> 
> No, Vishera was a 'tick' on Bulldozer. Steamroller is most definitely supposed to be a 'tock'. Significant architectural changes to the cores. Not to mention Jim Keller came back to AMD last August, so it's possible he's been mucking around with it and asked for a bit more time to get it right. In case you don't know, Jim Keller designed the AMD Athlon (K7) and significant portions of the Athlon 64 (K8). He also had a major hand in designing x86-64 instructions. The guy is a processor engineering genius, so I'm kind of stoked to see just how well Steamroller runs.


tick is a die shrink, tock is an architecture change (or some other significant change, just depends on what intel is focusing on).

So I don't really think Vishera matches either of those.


----------



## Blackops_2

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> Or an 8320 and OC it. Also 6300 is a good less expensive option again if you are OC'ing.


Agreed From what i've seen so far out of the 6300 rig i built for a friend it's a very nifty CPU for the money. It's very tempting to get one for my 990fx rig, but i think i'm going to hold out for steamroller.


----------



## Fulvin

What's the general consensus on steamrollers socket? I was considering grabbing a crosshair v formula-z for a phenom 965be, but it would be nice to have support for steamroller if it ever comes to see the light of day.


----------



## darkelixa

Im either considering buying the sabertooth 990fx rv2 with a 8350 or just waiting for steamroller


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *riscorpian*
> 
> Those aren't facts. They are assumptions and opinions.
> 
> As has been stated many times before, the FX series is an enthusiast line, not one for servers. That would be the Opteron line. I don't understand why it's an argument either. To say that FX will transfer to servers sounds pretty ridiculous, and I have yet to see any evidence that even remotely supports that.
> 
> Today's news has also nearly confirmed a Kaveri delay, so it's not a guarantee that we'll see the Steamroller APU until February 2014. There is also no confirmation that Steamroller FX will exist at all, but it's pretty strongly implied. Again, not a fact. There isn't any hard evidence to back it up.
> 
> No, APUs and FX are not one and the same. An APU has two modules while FX can have up to four. Those four extra cores give a large boost to multithreaded performance. And why would anyone interested in an FX in the first place care about good IGP? This is the line for people relying on discrete graphics. I would happily trade an amazing IGP for more cores. I'd get way more use out of that.


Well the last news report I read specified those as facts and even quoted the CEO, but that was a few months ago, so seeing as it is AMD, it doesn't surprise me at all that they have flip-flopped on their deadlines and promises once again.

Core architecture wise, yes the APU is the exact same thing. You want a lot of cores, 8+ well then that is what server CPU's are designed for, and that is why FX series will be eliminated IMO. SeaMicro(AMD server company) is doing very well, and there APU line and Mobile line is up and coming and stands a fighting chance against what Intel has to offer, on the other hand when are you talking about the FX series vs the I-series, AMD is sinking money into something with little return and little hope for progression. IMO FX series will be dead after Steamroller, if it isn't then AMD is stupider than I thought. Technology may be a hobby for me and you, but it is far from it when you are the business that is about to turn belly up if you don't organize your business and assets properly.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> So I would be better to buy a apu instead of a 8350?


Depends entirely with what you would want to do with the CPU. If you are going to use it strictly for gaming, then it might not be a bad idea. IF you plan on doing video encoding, streaming, code compiling, and you are on a tight budget, then the FX series 6 cores and up is your winning choice for the money. I only recommend Intel when it is an i7 and you need to do some serious work with your CPU. There is no work that a 4 core processor from Intel that a 4 core from AMD can't do.


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Fulvin*
> 
> What's the general consensus on steamrollers socket? I was considering grabbing a crosshair v formula-z for a phenom 965be, but it would be nice to have support for steamroller if it ever comes to see the light of day.


This is what the big debate is it about, there was a time when Steamroller was guaranteed to be on AM3+ with a 1090FX Chipset also heavily rumoured to succeed 990FX and go up against Z77/Z87. However since then AMD has been suspiciously quiet or intentionally vague on Steamroller's socket, this was then compounded by them dropping Steamroller from their Server Roadmap. Along with this there is even more general feeling that AMD is ready to pack in their Server and Enthusiast chips, admit defeat to Intel on those fronts and focus on APUs, a market which they are quickly eating up.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Well the last news report I read specified those as facts and even quoted the CEO, but that was a few months ago, so seeing as it is AMD, it doesn't surprise me at all that they have flip-flopped on their deadlines and promises once again.
> 
> Core architecture wise, yes the APU is the exact same thing. You want a lot of cores, 8+ well then that is what server CPU's are designed for, and that is why FX series will be eliminated IMO. SeaMicro(AMD server company) is doing very well, and there APU line and Mobile line is up and coming and stands a fighting chance against what Intel has to offer, on the other hand when are you talking about the FX series vs the I-series, AMD is sinking money into something with little return and little hope for progression. IMO FX series will be dead after Steamroller, if it isn't then AMD is stupider than I thought. Technology may be a hobby for me and you, but it is far from it when you are the business that is about to turn belly up if you don't organize your business and assets properly.


Yes your key word is FX series will be dead "AFTER" Steamroller. No arguement . You made my case for me. Steamroller will most likely be available in 8 core FX series.


----------



## Alatar

VRZ seems to say that Vishera will last till 2015. No replacement until then.

http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/


----------



## Seronx

The AM3+ platform will EOL by 2015 much like how the AM3 platform EOL'ed by 2013. Piledriver is the last architecture to be on the AM(x) platforms.


----------



## darkelixa

So another two years of the old socket, so buy the 8350 since nothing is coming out anytime soon?


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> So another two years of the old socket, so buy the 8350 since nothing is coming out anytime soon?


No you should see Steamroller based FX chips on the market along with a 1090FX chipset. So if you can handle waiting another 6 months to build your system it might be worth the wait. Otherwise you could buy a FX-8350 now, and still upgrade to Steamroller when they come out. Just make sure you have a common board from a known manufacture, that will release a updated bios for Steamroller support.


----------



## Seronx

1090FX and 1070 has already launched and those chipsets weren't for Steamroller. They were so similar to the 990FX and 970 chipsets, they even earned the same name as them!


----------



## darkelixa

If they are released then why are they not on the market to purchase? Yes it would be the 990fx asus sabertooth


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The AM3+ platform will EOL by 2015 much like how the AM3 platform EOL'ed by 2013. Piledriver is the last architecture to be on the AM(x) platforms.


That is your read on things. I agree about termination of AM3+ by 2016. You have no right to state as fact Piledriver is the last release on AM3+. It may be true and it may not. You neither sit on the AMD design team nor their management team. It is conjecture. You have not seen the revised road map to be released in the fall. End of story and get off your arrogant high horse.

ps: AMD has said there are multiple new offerings to be made on AM3+. one is the 9000 series. Unless you know the other offerings you could not possibly state unequivocally their will be no steamroller for FX. Less than a month ago you said it could be coming in the 4th quarter of 2014. You are changing your predictions too quickly without any evidence to justify the change.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The AM3+ platform will EOL by 2015 much like how the AM3 platform EOL'ed by 2013. Piledriver is the last architecture to be on the AM(x) platforms.


IMO Having a new platform on what will be a dead series(FX) after the next arch doesn't make any sense for the consumer or AMD. I could see how it would rake in the profit for motherboard companies and maybe AMD has some sort of backstreet deal with them, but other than that I highly doubt what you are saying is true, but you never know with AMD's management.


----------



## EniGma1987

Dont know if this is true or not, but VR-Zone China says they got this from documents ASUS received from AMD:
Quote:


> Kabini 屬於基本價格區間，Richland 在主流市場，那 AMD 效能級別的產品將由 Vishera 持續下去，一直到 2015 年都不會見到任何更新。


http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/

translated this says:
Quote:


> Kabini belong to the basic price range, Richland in the mainstream market, *the performance level of the product that AMD will Vishera continue until 2015 will not see any updates.*


This is yet more info that continues to suggested the strong possibility that we may not see an FX variant using the Steamroller cores on AM3+


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Dont know if this is true or not, but VR-Zone China says they got this from documents ASUS received from AMD:
> http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/
> 
> translated this says:
> This is yet more info that continues to suggested the strong possibility that we may not see an FX variant using the Steamroller cores on AM3+


There is a thread with this somewhere around here, you might wanna look for it. It might have more information in it regarding that subject at hand. I for one am perfectly fine with no FX Steamroller variants.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Dont know if this is true or not, but VR-Zone China says they got this from documents ASUS received from AMD:
> http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/
> 
> translated this says:
> This is yet more info that continues to suggested the strong possibility that we may not see an FX variant using the Steamroller cores on AM3+










Good find but I agree, sad to hear for us AM3+ owners. I had read the VR-Zone's English language version of the same article but they failed to even mention the Vishera info.


----------



## darkelixa

Buying a amd 8350 + sabertooth next week


----------



## Blackops_2

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Buying a amd 8350 + sabertooth next week


Seriously thinking of picking up an 8320 now.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> It's called the Centurion.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> They can always drop the price.
> 
> But you answer you question, AMD has largely already lost he enthusiast desktop market, especially the most profitable high end part of it. Given their position, I can understand why it was abandoned.
> 
> AMD understands that APUs are its future for PC computing. We AMD PC gamers are going to be left out in the _cold_. Which I'm fine with because I can increase my overclocking as a result.


The Centurion is inadequate. It doesn't overclock well. No one with custom cooling has gotten one up to 5.3 ghz clock speed. Don't mention turbo speed that is bull crap and we all know that.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Dont know if this is true or not, but VR-Zone China says they got this from documents ASUS received from AMD:
> http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/
> 
> translated this says:
> This is yet more info that continues to suggested the strong possibility that we may not see an FX variant using the Steamroller cores on AM3+


The translation to English is so poor it is meaningless. Go back to the drawing board to pull another ruse.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Good find but I agree, sad to hear for us AM3+ owners. I had read the VR-Zone's English language version of the same article but they failed to even mention the Vishera info.


That is because the so-called English translation is of such poor quality it is impossible to be precise in its meaning.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is because the so-called English translation is of such poor quality it is impossible to be precise in its meaning.


And that is why you have someone who knows Chinese confirm that it actually says Vishera until 2015:
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheLAWNOOB*
> 
> I'm more than 80% Chinese.
> 
> My upgrade plan to SR by next year is doomed.


----------



## skitz9417

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> And that is why you have someone who knows Chinese confirm that it actually says Vishera until 2015:


thats sucks


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> And that is why you have someone who knows Chinese confirm that it actually says Vishera until 2015:


And where is his post. I searched on this thread and did not see it.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> An alleged 30% boost in single threaded performance will only put kaveri at the level of the current fx's?
> 
> I believe Kaveri uses 8 of its 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes to connect to the southbridge. One of the FM2+ motherboards has two x16 slots (x8/x8 electrical) for the remaining 16 lanes. Intel uses a similar setup and seems to do just fine.


That means triple and quad Crossfire are not supported. Unacceptable.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Dont know if this is true or not, but VR-Zone China says they got this from documents ASUS received from AMD:
> http://chinese.vr-zone.com/75619/amd-will-use-carrizo-to-replace-kaveri-at-2015-and-scoping-ddr4-07262013/
> 
> translated this says:
> This is yet more info that continues to suggested the strong possibility that we may not see an FX variant using the Steamroller cores on AM3+


the full translation.
Quote:


> Kaveri determine postponed until after the second quarter of 2014, ASUS has just released A88X motherboards will continue to use until 2015.
> 
> The paper noted that in accordance with our hands, AMD is expected to release in 2013, the Kaveri APU determined from the roadmap postponed until the second quarter of 2014, as the launch date, and is currently unable to confirm.
> 
> The document also mentions AMD Kaveri subsequent successor "Carrizo", is expected in 2014, AMD will introduce this APU, which is expected to release in 2015. "Carrizo" will continue to use the A88X or A78 FCH, TDP up to 65W, while expected to adopt DDR4 memory.
> 
> Basic (essential) price range, AMD will launch a product called "Beema" the APU, it will use the Puma + CPU core and the next generation of AMD Radeon GPU. The APU will be built SOC FCH, while supporting HSA plan, as pin should be FT3 BGA.
> 
> In "Beema" after the will from "Nolan" instead, time table currently set at 2015. It also supports HSA plan, it is planned to use FT4 BGA pin. CPU core, the current data is displayed as 4 CPU Cores, while the GPU part is the "Beema" the same, only the New Gen AMD Radeon Graphics.
> 
> AMD will begin in August released the first batch of the plant Kaveri processor, and mass production will be carried out in December. If you follow this step, the fastest mid-February, will have the opportunity to see the path.
> 
> Kabini belong to the basic price range, Richland in the mainstream market, the performance level of the product that AMD will Vishera continue until 2015 will not see any updates.


If thats true, if there is going to be no new APU for one year and no replacement for Vishera for 2 years then AMD have just sunk themselves.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> And where is his post. I searched on this thread and did not see it.


click the button behind his name in the quote and it'l take you to the post...


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> the full translation.
> If thats true, if there is going to be no new APU for one year and no replacement for Vishera for 2 years then AMD have just sunk themselves.


Agreed.







Prepare for Intel's improvements to slow even more and the prices even higher.

Man os2wiz chill out. There is no reason for you to get upset over a bunch of people you don't know or care about over the internet.


----------



## Mombasa69

Does it really matter if steamroller comes next year, or whenever, if you're into just gaming as many here probably are, remember the next gen games have been optimized for a weak 8-core cpu (AMD Jaguar) and a fair gpu AMD Radeon, combined onto one board (apu).

TBH all you'll really need (at least for the next few years) is an FX-8350 (or lower 8 core cpu) and maybe 2 Radeon 9970's, or R9's or whatever they will end up naming them.

The next gen games are going to make far more use of the GPU rather than rely so much on the cpu, I'm going for the next gen Radeons as they will be true DX11.2, and sticking with my FX-8350.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Prepare for Intel's improvements to slow even more and the prices even higher.
> 
> Man os2wiz chill out. There is no reason for you to get upset over a bunch of people you don't know or care about over the internet.


Where do you get 1 year for a new apu, when February 15 is only a little over 6 months away.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Prepare for Intel's improvements to slow even more and the prices even higher.
> 
> Man os2wiz chill out. There is no reason for you to get upset over a bunch of people you don't know or care about over the internet.


He is probably somewhat upset because this is the same style of FUD we saw before 7970 came out. "The process isnt' ready!" "AMD doesn't have anything!" "AMD is quiet they're SCREWED IF THEYRE NOT TALKING!!!!"

And then AMD released 7970 and it was good (albeit overpriced).

Also, I do believe that he is rather annoyed at the fact that you are drawing conclusions based on the premises that

1. AMD will continue to focus on server first and translate their server chips into FX CPUs

2. A lack of information guarantees a lack of future products

3. AMD is incapable of competing with Intel and thus Intel will stagnate. (Protip, they've stagnated on desktop since Sandy Bridge because they don't care about us anymore and we, as enthusiasts, are no longer important to Intel *at all*).

You just draw ridiculous conclusions from information and then you keep repeating it. You haven't even taken the time to think that Intel's roadmaps and everything that focuses purely on mobile, "SDP", and iGPU focus on those things because Intel thinks desktops are dying, they can make more money in mobile, are concerned about ARM stealing their CPU marketshare, etc.

No, you assume it's entirely AMD's fault Intel is no longer trying to make faster x86 desktop CPUs and then you go as far as to attack os2wiz's character for disagreeing with you.

I can understand his frustration however I think he is aware of why you're irking him so much but he can't find the words to explain it properly.

The TL;DR is that you rush to conclusions without looking at all the evidence, treat that conclusion as gospel, and then attack anyone who questions your conclusion.

That's a pretty annoying thing to deal with and it contributes nothing to a discussion as it reduces people who behave like that to the equivalent of "wah wah wah mommy he's not listening to me make him listen to me he's a big stoopid DOO DOO HEADDDD!!!", which no one wants to put up with, won't make you any friends, and makes you look completely foolish when someone who knows how to deal with that sort of behavior shows up and attempts to put an end to it.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

I will have to say there is a lot of speculation proclaimed to be truth here and I understands os's position

personally here is what I think is going to happen as it seems to be the precurser ...

apu to desktop apu refresh desktop refresh
meaning trinity was pushed out 6 months before fx richland pushed out a few months before centurion albeit is a bit of a gimmick... I would place my life savings given logic that kavari comes out and a few months later steamroller comes out.. id even go as far to say that it WILL be on am3+

why? A new chipset can change without socket change. Also excavator is going to be the change in socket to fm3 which will have full atx... it makes no sense on this other speculation to change things as it would at that point become mute wasted money in r&d they dont have to spare and for what to force consumers to leave because a lot of un needed sidegrades.. most of the people in here are smart but there are a few that do not have the common sense to see how their entire point is invalid


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes your key word is FX series will be dead "AFTER" Steamroller. No arguement . You made my case for me. Steamroller will most likely be available in 8 core FX series.


You're a little hypocritical for railing against people for suggesting that there will be no steamroller on am3+. You offer about as much evidence as we do.

I understand that your investment in an AM3+ platform might make you hopeful for an 8 core 'roller. I would like to see this happen as well. Unfortunately, when warsaw was announced as the 2014 high end server chip, that completely dampened any hope.

Just out of curiosity - if the desktop AMD roadmap shows no steamroller fx for 2014 and kaveri makes its promised improvements on single threaded performance, will you change over to fm2+?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> You're a little hypocritical for railing against people for suggesting that there will be no steamroller on am3+. You offer about as much evidence as we do.
> 
> I understand that your investment in an AM3+ platform might make you hopeful for an 8 core 'roller. I would like to see this happen as well. Unfortunately, when warsaw was announced as the 2014 high end server chip, that completely dampened any hope.
> 
> Just out of curiosity - if the desktop AMD roadmap shows no steamroller fx for 2014 and kaveri makes its promised improvements on single threaded performance, will you change over to fm2+?


personally id wait till the generation after that


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> 1. I did not agree with the statement that he made as fact. I only agreed with the fact that if AMD chose to hold off another year for a new APU and 2 for another FX processor then it would be financial suicide.
> 
> 2.I said that remark to os2wiz in order to cheer him up and make him realize that he should take this discussion a little less serious.
> 
> 3. You are the one jumping to conclusions not me and you are the one insulting me. If you took the time to read the other posts I have submitted, then you would realize that I have said everything you have just said already. Please keep your responses friendly in nature, I will only ask once.


1. What statement I made as fact? Any statement I made as fact is fact. But it is your buddies Seronx et al who are making statements as fact that are not facts just conjecture. I am not giving one of those lame excuses for thinking people a free pass to rumor monger. Seronx et al will rue the day they opened their mouths to spread F.U.D.. If they want to spread rumors go on to Twitter or Facebook. If they want to gossip there is Jerry Springer. This is a place for discussion. If you want to speculate call it as it is , speculation, not fact. That is why I am pissed.
They don't have the presence of mind to separate speculation from fact. That is their problem.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I will have to say there is a lot of speculation proclaimed to be truth here and I understands os's position


I don't think anyone has said anything as actual fact except for Seronx and os2wiz, neither of which can provide any proof to what they say and both of which are at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet equally as irritating to everyone









Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> What statement I made as fact? Any statement I made as fact is fact. But it is your buddies Seronx et al who are making statements as fact that are not facts just conjecture.


lol. love the logic.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> 1. What statement I made as fact? Any statement I made as fact is fact. But it is your buddies Seronx et al who are making statements as fact that are not facts just conjecture. I am not giving one of those lame excuses for thinking people a free pass to rumor monger. Seronx et al will rue the day they opened their mouths to spread F.U.D.. If they want to spread rumors go on to Twitter or Facebook. If they want to gossip there is Jerry Springer. This is a place for discussion. If you want to speculate call it as it is , speculation, not fact. That is why I am pissed.
> They don't have the presence of mind to separate speculation from fact. That is their problem.


Not your statement!







(I knew there was a miscommunication somewhere.







) I have agreed with everything you have had to say thus far lol. In fact you even responded to one of my posts "thanks for proving my point for me."
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> the full translation.
> *If thats true, if there is going to be no new APU for one year and no replacement for Vishera for 2 years then AMD have just sunk themselves.*


^ This statement! Like he said if it is true AMD is done for.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I don't think anyone has said anything as actual fact except for Seronx and os2wiz, neither of which can provide any proof to what they say and both of which are at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet equally as irritating to everyone
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> lol. love the logic.


Only thing os said was that he talked to amd exects.. which I do believe to be true however not provable as he had stated in other threads about it long before this one was created. Also there had been a few others as I just read through all 20 pages..

regardless what I said stands true.. most of these rumors speculations really do not make sense up to and including thamd is not going to release anything.. from a business standpoint it is suicide

the socket debate is stupid as well.. why waste the resources..

at this point I agree we need to wait for the new roadmap ... we also are going to see the same thing with steamroller as trinity and vishera it is only 100% logical


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Prepare for Intel's improvements to slow even more and the prices even higher.
> 
> Man os2wiz chill out. There is no reason for you to get upset over a bunch of people you don't know or care about over the internet.


Until they see these cheap sub $200 APU's doing everything Intel's i7 chips can do in half the time. I think people fail to realize Kaveri is going to be more powerful than FX ever was. Kaveri will bring 1 teraflop of number crunching power, that's easily *five times that of an overclocked 3960x!* How well it gets utilized depends solely on how many software developers adopt HSA. Only time will tell, tho I know for a fact that I am staying FM2+.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> He is probably somewhat upset because this is the same style of FUD we saw before 7970 came out. "The process isnt' ready!" "AMD doesn't have anything!" "AMD is quiet they're SCREWED IF THEYRE NOT TALKING!!!!"
> 
> And then AMD released 7970 and it was good (albeit overpriced).
> 
> Also, I do believe that he is rather annoyed at the fact that you are drawing conclusions based on the premises that
> 
> 1. AMD will continue to focus on server first and translate their server chips into FX CPUs
> 
> 2. A lack of information guarantees a lack of future products
> 
> 3. AMD is incapable of competing with Intel and thus Intel will stagnate. (Protip, they've stagnated on desktop since Sandy Bridge because they don't care about us anymore and we, as enthusiasts, are no longer important to Intel *at all*).
> 
> You just draw ridiculous conclusions from information and then you keep repeating it. You haven't even taken the time to think that Intel's roadmaps and everything that focuses purely on mobile, "SDP", and iGPU focus on those things because Intel thinks desktops are dying, they can make more money in mobile, are concerned about ARM stealing their CPU marketshare, etc.
> 
> No, you assume it's entirely AMD's fault Intel is no longer trying to make faster x86 desktop CPUs and then you go as far as to attack os2wiz's character for disagreeing with you.
> 
> I can understand his frustration however I think he is aware of why you're irking him so much but he can't find the words to explain it properly.
> 
> The TL;DR is that you rush to conclusions without looking at all the evidence, treat that conclusion as gospel, and then attack anyone who questions your conclusion.
> 
> That's a pretty annoying thing to deal with and it contributes nothing to a discussion as it reduces people who behave like that to the equivalent of "wah wah wah mommy he's not listening to me make him listen to me he's a big stoopid DOO DOO HEADDDD!!!", which no one wants to put up with, won't make you any friends, and makes you look completely foolish when someone who knows how to deal with that sort of behavior shows up and attempts to put an end to it.


What? AMD is right on track with Steamroller. They are keeping closed doors to keep any hype from being built.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That means triple and quad Crossfire are not supported. Unacceptable.


What? My FM2 board supports quad CrossfireX (3 discrete, one iGPU). Or true three way CrossfireX with discrete cards.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Until they see these cheap sub $200 APU's doing everything Intel's i7 chips can do in half the time. I think people fail to realize Kaveri is going to be more powerful than FX ever was. Kaveri will bring 1 teraflop of number crunching power, that's easily *five times that of an overclocked 3960x!* How well it gets utilized depends solely on how many software developers adopt HSA. Only time will tell, tho I know for a fact that I am staying FM2+.


(I think the percentage of increase over the Sandy Bridge-E is a bit of an over statement considering Steamroller will most likely only close the gap to perform as good as Sandy at a significantly lower clock, maybe 3ghz Vs the 5ghz it needs now)

However, I, like you, will come rushing to the defense of the APU line. It is a smart business move by AMD to focus on a broader market other than the enthusiast, which Intel is clearly dominating and will continue to dominate. People have all the wrong ideas about the line because it is not all hyped up like the FX series was. The APU has the same core arch as the FX/Opteron series and has a bonus of a amazing IGP. The normal consumer barely even needs a quad core and in reality the difference between the 4300 and 8350 in games alone is not at all significant.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> And so quad crossfire/quad sli are impossible on lga 1150? If its unsupported, its because motherboard manufacturers don't see a point in such a board for fm2+.


No. Their are not sufficient pci express lanes to support it.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Only thing os said was that he talked to amd exects.. which I do believe to be true however not provable as he had stated in other threads about it long before this one was created. Also there had been a few others as I just read through all 20 pages..
> 
> regardless what I said stands true.. most of these rumors speculations really do not make sense up to and including thamd is not going to release anything.. from a business standpoint it is suicide
> 
> the socket debate is stupid as well.. why waste the resources..
> 
> at this point I agree we need to wait for the new roadmap ... we also are going to see the same thing with steamroller as trinity and vishera it is only 100% logical


Man that is all I have been saying wait for the fall roadmap.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> No. Their are not sufficient pci express lanes to support it.


With PLX switch chips there is enough lanes to support it.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> (I think the percentage of increase over the Sandy Bridge-E is a bit of an over statement considering Steamroller will most likely only close the gap to perform as good as Sandy at a significantly lower clock, maybe 3ghz Vs the 5ghz it needs now)
> 
> However, I, like you, will come rushing to the defense of the APU line. It is a smart business move by AMD to focus on a broader market other than the enthusiast, which Intel is clearly dominating and will continue to dominate. People have all the wrong ideas about the line because it is not all hyped up like the FX series was. The APU has the same core arch as the FX/Opteron series and has a bonus of a amazing IGP. The normal consumer barely even needs a quad core and in reality the difference between the 4300 and 8350 in games alone is not at all significant.


To be truthful, my A10-6800k is already 3x faster than any overclocked 3960x right now. I mean I can honestly say I own the fastest desktop processor available on the consumer market right now. The A10-6800k at stock is capable of over 600 gflops. Having a GPU as a co-processor is what makes these chips that much faster than every other desktop processor available. If you were to write an application that utilizes OpenCL, the A10-6800k would carry out its tasks more than twice as fast as the 3960x. The more advanced the OpenCL SDK becomes, the more amounts of different calculations can be done via the GPU. It's only a matter of time before the entire backend of applications is GPU bound. And I think that's what AMD is trying to make happen with HSA. Let your serial processors handle the form, and the main thread. And push the workload off onto the GPU. Graphics cores have always been 10x faster than serial processors, and they still are today.

With a 10-15% increase in core performance over Piledriver, there's no doubt the Kaveri A10 will be better gamer than the FX-4350. In which games are becoming more and more multi-core oriented. Meaning when playing newer games AMD's "Athlons" will no longer bottleneck big dog cards like the HD 7970. So going out and buying an eight core FX does have its advantages in gaming, tho its still a very small margin (noticable to you). Right now core performance is more important for AMD than core count, and I think everyone will agree on that. I am curious as to if AMD plans on releasing a six core APU this generation, as rumors have been going around about documentation stating they will be. A six core Steamroller based APU packing 512 GCN cores would be a monster. It would probably cost about the same as a i7 4770k, but boy would that thing crunch numbers like no tomorrow. And it would gave extremely well too, with or without discrete graphics.


----------



## Castaa

I'm not even sure what people are arguing about anymore.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> I'm not even sure what people are arguing about anymore.


I think they were arguing about FM2+ not having enough PCIe lanes for triple or quad crossfire support or something.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> To be truthful, my A10-6800k is already 3x faster than any overclocked 3960x right now. I mean I can honestly say I own the fastest desktop processor available on the consumer market right now. The A10-6800k at stock is capable of over 600 gflops. Having a GPU as a co-processor is what makes these chips that much faster than every other desktop processor available. If you were to write an application that utilizes OpenCL, the A10-6800k would carry out its tasks more than twice as fast as the 3960x. The more advanced the OpenCL SDK becomes, the more amounts of different calculations can be done via the GPU. It's only a matter of time before the entire backend of applications is GPU bound. And I think that's what AMD is trying to make happen with HSA. Let your serial processors handle the form, and the main thread. And push the workload off onto the GPU. Graphics cores have always been 10x faster than serial processors, and they still are today.
> 
> With a 10-15% increase in core performance over Piledriver, there's no doubt the Kaveri A10 will be better gamer than the FX-4350. In which games are becoming more and more multi-core oriented. Meaning when playing newer games AMD's "Athlons" will no longer bottleneck big dog cards like the HD 7970. So going out and buying an eight core FX does have its advantages in gaming, tho its still a very small margin (noticable to you). Right now core performance is more important for AMD than core count, and I think everyone will agree on that. I am curious as to if AMD plans on releasing a six core APU this generation, as rumors have been going around about documentation stating they will be. A six core Steamroller based APU packing 512 GCN cores would be a monster. It would probably cost about the same as a i7 4770k, but boy would that thing crunch numbers like no tomorrow. And it would gave extremely well too, with or without discrete graphics.


You do have a point there, instead of OpenCL relying on the GPU, it relys on the strong IGP, but unfortunately that is only useful in 3D rendering and the 3960x has 6(technically 8) cores with HT which gives it 12 threads(8 more threads then your 6800k) and a huge L3 cache, which makes for a very good server computer/multi-tasking PC and the Sandy Bridge-E series is the only CPU on the market that can handle 4 high end GPU's and not bottleneck them. I should give one of those APUs a go for my next build, so I can compare them with first hand experience. But IMO and from first hand experience, the Sandy Bridge arch is far superior to the Piledriver arch when you want to multi task some serious programs. (Try to video edit with VirtualDub and playing a game, while using Photoshop and compiling C++ code with dual channel memory and an AMD processor, doesn't work very well.)

I don't want to turn this into an Intel vs AMD war here, so I will end my post with this. Intel and AMD are both a good choice depending on the individuals purposes and uses of his/her computer.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> You do have a point there, instead of OpenCL relying on the GPU, it relys on the strong IGP, but unfortunately that is only useful in 3D rendering and the 3960x has 6(technically 8) cores with HT which gives it 12 threads(8 more threads then your 6800k) and a huge L3 cache, which makes for a very good server computer/multi-tasking PC and the Sandy Bridge-E series is the only CPU on the market that can handle 4 high end GPU's and not bottleneck them. I should give one of those APUs a go for my next build, so I can compare them with first hand experience. But IMO and from first hand experience, the Sandy Bridge arch is far superior to the Piledriver arch when you want to multi task some serious programs. (Try to video edit with VirtualDub and playing a game, while using Photoshop and compiling C++ code with dual channel memory and an AMD processor, doesn't work very well.)
> 
> I don't want to turn this into an Intel vs AMD war here, so I will end my post with this. Intel and AMD are both a good choice depending on the individuals purposes and uses of his/her computer.


There's no doubt Intel runs the market in terms of pure core performance. And it will no doubt remain superior in multi-tasking even after Kaveri comes out. Tho I am speaking from a task at hand perspective. You can find applications that do utilize OpenCL for purposes other than video and 3D, such as LibreOffice will be the fist HSA optimized software. WinZIP is also OpenCL accelerated. So I don't think there is such a big limitation to what the OpenCL SDK can do. It's just a huge pain in the neck to write something that utilizes it in its current state. This is the exact reason why HSA was born, to make writing OpenCL accelerated applications much easier. With HSA you can write an OpenCL accelerated application exactly the same way as you would a traditional Win32 application (except using the OpenCL functions within your code). You no longer need to mess with allocating two completely separate memory buffers (1 CPU, 1 GPU) and communicate between them. With HSA the CPU and the iGPU both have access to the same exact system memory and the same exact memory space. I mean think about, remember when Intel first introduced their Intel chips with a built in iGPU. They had that whole "encode movies while you game!" deal going on. Now imagine what AMD's chips will be capable of doing with such a robust SDK like OpenCL on top of GCN architecture. HSA isn't necessarily an improvement for the consumer, it's more of an improvement for developers to write better software for the consumer. The amount of accelerated applications should double within the first year of HSA being available. Simply because its just that much easier to use. You might even see weird names pop up taking use of it like Microsoft. We don't know how its going to turn out, and if its even going to be worth while (issues can still arise). Tho based on what we do know, its the biggest change in desktop computing in many years.


----------



## Masta Squidge

More like Steamloller.

Amirite?

Get it?

Gaiz?


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Masta Squidge*
> 
> More like Steamloller.
> 
> Amirite?
> 
> Get it?
> 
> Gaiz?


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> There's no doubt Intel runs the market in terms of pure core performance. And it will no doubt remain superior in multi-tasking even after Kaveri comes out. Tho I am speaking from a task at hand perspective. You can find applications that do utilize OpenCL for purposes other than video and 3D, such as LibreOffice will be the fist HSA optimized software. WinZIP is also OpenCL accelerated. So I don't think there is such a big limitation to what the OpenCL SDK can do. It's just a huge pain in the neck to write something that utilizes it in its current state. This is the exact reason why HSA was born, to make writing OpenCL accelerated applications much easier. With HSA you can write an OpenCL accelerated application exactly the same way as you would a traditional Win32 application (except using the OpenCL functions within your code). You no longer need to mess with allocating two completely separate memory buffers (1 CPU, 1 GPU) and communicate between them. With HSA the CPU and the iGPU both have access to the same exact system memory and the same exact memory space. I mean think about, remember when Intel first introduced their Intel chips with a built in iGPU. They had that whole "encode movies while you game!" deal going on. Now imagine what AMD's chips will be capable of doing with such a robust SDK like OpenCL on top of GCN architecture. HSA isn't necessarily an improvement for the consumer, it's more of an improvement for developers to write better software for the consumer. The amount of accelerated applications should double within the first year of HSA being available. Simply because its just that much easier to use. You might even see weird names pop up taking use of it like Microsoft. We don't know how its going to turn out, and if its even going to be worth while (issues can still arise). Tho based on what we do know, its the biggest change in desktop computing in many years.


Yes you have a point, but not as many applications use OpenCL or HSA, once again AMD is on the right track but they need to build within the what software is using now. They will never see software companies "catch up" when they have such a small market share compared to Intel. Sad, but true.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*


rofl


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> No. Their are not sufficient pci express lanes to support it.


Wrong. An haswell i7 for example only has 16 pcie lanes on die. It can support tri/quad xfire/sli no problem provided the motherboard supports it. Not to mention it is no trouble destroying fx cpus in any kind of multi gpu config even though the 990fx chipset provides 40+ pcie lanes.


----------



## glussier

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Wrong. An haswell i7 for example only has 16 pcie lanes on die. It can support tri/quad xfire/sli no problem provided the motherboard supports it. Not to mention it is no trouble destroying fx cpus in any kind of multi gpu config even though the 990fx chipset provides 40+ pcie lanes.


Haswell has 24 pcie lanes, 16 being pcie 3 and the remainder are pcie 2.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes you have a point, but not as many applications use OpenCL or HSA, once again AMD is on the right track but they need to build within the what software is using now. They will never see software companies "catch up" when they have such a small market share compared to Intel. Sad, but true.
> rofl


That being because it is hard to write applications to utilize OpenCL in its current state. HSA makes writing applications a walk in the park, as all you do is use the OpenCL SDK functions in your application after you setup a device driver. As I said, right now you have to work with two completely separate memory buffers for OpenCL to be even possible. One memory space in the system memory for the CPU, and another memory space in vram for the GPU. That doesn't make things any easier, when you have to pipe resources from your CPU to the GPU and back again over and over. With HSA, your application uses one memory space. And both the CPU and iGPU can use that same memory space. So for an example if I created a single byte memory space with my application like you would traditionally (CPU), and stored a byte value of 25 in it. I could then switch over to OpenCL and use the GPU and pull that value right from the same memory space. So communicating back and forth between the CPU and the GPU is seamless. Right now OpenCL is like two separate buckets next to each other full of quarters, to move quarters from one to the other. You have to take them out, and move them to the other. This is how memory works for OpenCL right now. With HSA, there's only one bucket and it holds all your quarters. It's one of them things where you wont see any applications utilizing it, until the processors actually hit the market. Because right now even the developers don't have these APU's, and you simply cannot write an application and debug it without using the actual hardware that supports it. So we're not sure how widely HSA will be adopted once it releases. Tho you can bet that applications written for HSA will crunch numbers faster than using equivalent discrete hardware, because there is simply no PCIe bandwidth limitation. I mean I get your point that the amount of software that uses this technology isn't that great, but what i'm trying to tell you is that is the whole reason why AMD made HSA.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Wrong. An haswell i7 for example only has 16 pcie lanes on die. It can support tri/quad xfire/sli no problem provided the motherboard supports it. Not to mention it is no trouble destroying fx cpus in any kind of multi gpu config even though the 990fx chipset provides 40+ pcie lanes.


I stand corrected. I made an incorrect assumption by the limited pci express 16 slots I have seen, even on full atx fm2 and fm2+ motherboards. My Crosshair V Formula Z has 3 pci x16 slots and and one pci x8 slot. Yet to see a real enthusiast board for fm2 or 2plus. Hoping they will make the light of day soon.


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yet to see a real enthusiast board for fm2 or 2plus. Hoping they will make the light of day soon.


FM2(+) isn't a real enthusiast platform, thus the lack of real enthusiast boards.

There are some things that it does well (for the price), but it doesn't even compare with the mainstream Z77/Z87 platforms (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell), let alone X79 (Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E).


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> FM2(+) isn't a real enthusiast platform, thus the lack of real enthusiast boards.
> 
> There are some things that it does well (for the price), but it doesn't even compare with the mainstream Z77/Z87 platforms (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell), let alone X79 (Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E).


My A85X based board is an enthusiast board. It has 8+2 phase digi powered VRM, and it also supports quad CrossfireX. I mean, I don't think you can get to much more "enthusiast" than that. And its only $89 on Newegg brand new. Wait for the A88X Extreme6 to come out, it will probably a pretty sick board too. I plan on getting one or an ASUS brand depending on features.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> That being because it is hard to write applications to utilize OpenCL in its current state. HSA makes writing applications a walk in the park, as all you do is use the OpenCL SDK functions in your application after you setup a device driver. As I said, right now you have to work with two completely separate memory buffers for OpenCL to be even possible. One memory space in the system memory for the CPU, and another memory space in vram for the GPU. That doesn't make things any easier, when you have to pipe resources from your CPU to the GPU and back again over and over. With HSA, your application uses one memory space. And both the CPU and iGPU can use that same memory space. So for an example if I created a single byte memory space with my application like you would traditionally (CPU), and stored a byte value of 25 in it. I could then switch over to OpenCL and use the GPU and pull that value right from the same memory space. So communicating back and forth between the CPU and the GPU is seamless. Right now OpenCL is like two separate buckets next to each other full of quarters, to move quarters from one to the other. You have to take them out, and move them to the other. This is how memory works for OpenCL right now. With HSA, there's only one bucket and it holds all your quarters. It's one of them things where you wont see any applications utilizing it, until the processors actually hit the market. Because right now even the developers don't have these APU's, and you simply cannot write an application and debug it without using the actual hardware that supports it. So we're not sure how widely HSA will be adopted once it releases. Tho you can bet that applications written for HSA will crunch numbers faster than using equivalent discrete hardware, because there is simply no PCIe bandwidth limitation. I mean I get your point that the amount of software that uses this technology isn't that great, but what i'm trying to tell you is that is the whole reason why AMD made HSA.


That is quite interesting stuff! Would that basically make the Quad channel memory seem moot on the X79 platform(unless you are doing some serious multi tasking of course where threads/cores is the limiting factor)? As it makes better use out of the immediate sources, rather than relaying to the data through different channels to reach the same solution.







Sounds like I will be picking up a Kaveri when it surfaces to the market!


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> That is quite interesting stuff! Would that basically make the Quad channel memory seem moot on the X79 platform(unless you are doing some serious multi tasking of course where threads/cores is the limiting factor)? As it makes better use out of the immediate sources, rather than relaying to the data through different channels to reach the same solution.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds like I will be picking up a Kaveri when it surfaces to the market!


Yep with HSA the resources stay stationary. No more sending data back and forth across the PCIe lanes. Instead the CPU memory *is* the iGPU memory, and they can communicate together back and forth from that same spot.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> FM2(+) isn't a real enthusiast platform, thus the lack of real enthusiast boards.
> 
> There are some things that it does well (for the price), but it doesn't even compare with the mainstream Z77/Z87 platforms (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell), let alone X79 (Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E).


Since you did not mention the AMD enthusiast boards for Vishera like Asus Crosshair V Formula Z, I am thinking you are Intel-centric. That automatically lowers my opinion of your objectivity. If AMD wants the apu strategy to succeed they will have to encourage an enthusiast layer to their future apu designs. It is only common sense. You do not want to destroy your enthusiast community. They are a magnet for an expanded user base.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> My A85X based board is an enthusiast board. It has 8+2 phase digi powered VRM, and it also supports quad CrossfireX. I mean, I don't think you can get to much more "enthusiast" than that. And its only $89 on Newegg brand new. Wait for the A88X Extreme6 to come out, it will probably a pretty sick board too. I plan on getting one or an ASUS brand depending on features.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> FM2(+) isn't a real enthusiast platform, thus the lack of real enthusiast boards.
> 
> There are some things that it does well (for the price), but it doesn't even compare with the mainstream Z77/Z87 platforms (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell), let alone X79 (Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E).


Since you did not mention the AMD enthusiast boards for Vishera like Asus Crosshair V Formula Z I am thimking you are Intel-centric. That automatically lowers my opinion of your objectivity. If AMD wants the apu strategy to succeed they will have to encourage an enthusiast layer to their future apu designs. It is
only common sense. You do not want to destroy your enthusiast
community. They are a magnet for an expanded user base.

Yes I bought an Extreme 6 A85X board for a build I did for my
nephew. I coupled it with an A10 6800k .


----------



## darkelixa

FM2 is a low-mid range CPU. Of course its not going to have a high end board , its not required. Lol


----------



## darkelixa

FM2 is a low-mid range CPU. Of course its not going to have a high end board , its not required. Lol


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> FM2 is a low-mid range CPU. Of course its not going to have a high end board , its not required. Lol


I was referring to FM2+. Is there llc in the bios on any of these boards to maximixe overclocking?


----------



## EniGma1987

My guess would be that *if* AMD moves its main platform to be FM2+ and the performance of the Steamroller core really shines through on the APU's there, then one of the companies would definitely come along and create a real enthusiast board for that platform


----------



## Dynamo11

The FM2+ stuff sounds interesting, especially if an enthusiast board was made. I'd love a ROG board for the FM2+ socket


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> My guess would be that *if* AMD moves its main platform to be FM2+ and the performance of the Steamroller core really shines through on the APU's there, then one of the companies would definitely come along and create a real enthusiast board for that platform


which will be excavator


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> which will be excavator


Is that a fact or speculation?(no insult intended just want to know)


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Is that a fact or speculation?(no insult intended just want to know)


Expect everything to be speculation in this thread regarding Steamroller/FM2+/etc.

Anyone else notice the socket color change of FM2 and FM2+?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> The FM2+ stuff sounds interesting, especially if an enthusiast board was made. I'd love a ROG board for the FM2+ socket


That is exactly what I was about to express. I have bought two ROG AMD motherboards. I have been quite happy with them.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Expect everything to be speculation in this thread regarding Steamroller/FM2+/etc.
> 
> Anyone else notice the socket color change of FM2 and FM2+?


I believe most of the information I provided to be accurate. I have seen the new socket & color. It kind of makes you think about it for a minute. AM3 was white, and AM3+ was black. Now FM2 is white, and FM2+ is black. I see a reoccurring color pattern unfolding. Tho it's most likely only like that to tell the difference between them based on color.


----------



## Seronx

I have an idea of what might happen:

-- Kaveri FM2+ --
FX or FirePro APUs => 6 SR Cores, 768 CI/VI Cores, 8 GB GDDR5(TSV?)(Dual-channel)
A10 APUs => 4 SR Cores, 512 CI/VI Cores, 32+ GB DDR3
so on/etc.

-- Basilisk GC36 --
FX or FirePro APU => 16 SR+ Cores, 1024/2048 VI/PI Cores, 32 GB GDDR5/GDDR6(TSV?) or 64+ GB DDR4(Octo-channel)
No A10 just goes to a lower FX or FirePro model.

I doubt APUs getting FX models, though they are more likely to get the FirePro nomenclature.

The Basilisk name is more inline with a CPU die name than an APU name. I am only confused with it because Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk have the same engineers.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I have an idea of what might happen:
> 
> -- Kaveri FM2+ --
> FX or FirePro APUs => 6 SR Cores, 768 CI/VI Cores, 8 GB GDDR5(TSV?)(Dual-channel)
> A10 APUs => 4 SR Cores, 512 CI/VI Cores, 32+ GB DDR3
> so on/etc.
> 
> -- Basilisk GC36 --
> FX or FirePro APU => 16 SR+ Cores, 1024/2048 VI/PI Cores, 32 GB GDDR5/GDDR6(TSV?) or 64+ GB DDR4(Octo-channel)
> No A10 just goes to a lower FX or FirePro model.
> 
> I doubt APUs getting FX models, though they are more likely to get the FirePro nomenclature.
> 
> The Basilisk name is more inline with a CPU die name than an APU name. I am only confused with it because Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk have the same engineers.


If in fact steamroller for am3+ is dead, then a 6 core Kaveri would be a better alternative for those of us who are enthusiasts. We will still lose 10-15% percent in performance due to loss of L3 cache. If HSA is well supported by that time we will make up for that with the gddr5 memory from our high end graphics cards. I have two 7950's each with 3 GB dddr5. That would certainly speed up HSA applications. Now if winzip and Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements go HSA that will also help,.but in non HSA apps steamroller will be at the FX-8350 level of performance most likely. That is if there is a 6 core enthusiast version.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Is that a fact or speculation?(no insult intended just want to know)


speculation based on trends from my understanding that will be when socket am3+ will end given all the facts that are out

If amd played it right and all the improvements did ad 30% performance each time per core it would then make excavator a big improvement with hsa and the hUMA as long as softwaresupport goes along with it I do not see why excavator apu would not become enthusiest


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I have an idea of what might happen:
> 
> -- Kaveri FM2+ --
> FX or FirePro APUs => 6 SR Cores, 768 CI/VI Cores, 8 GB GDDR5(TSV?)(Dual-channel)
> A10 APUs => 4 SR Cores, 512 CI/VI Cores, 32+ GB DDR3
> so on/etc.
> 
> -- Basilisk GC36 --
> FX or FirePro APU => 16 SR+ Cores, 1024/2048 VI/PI Cores, 32 GB GDDR5/GDDR6(TSV?) or 64+ GB DDR4(Octo-channel)
> No A10 just goes to a lower FX or FirePro model.
> 
> I doubt APUs getting FX models, though they are more likely to get the FirePro nomenclature.
> 
> The Basilisk name is more inline with a CPU die name than an APU name. I am only confused with it because Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk have the same engineers.


You should post a summary of bdver3's instruction latencies like you did on semi accurate. Very interesting stuff - much improved on floating point loads and stores versus 'dozer and 'driver.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I have an idea of what might happen:
> -- Basilisk GC36 --
> FX or FirePro APU => 16 SR+ Cores, 1024/2048 VI/PI Cores, 32 GB GDDR5/GDDR6(TSV?) or 64+ GB DDR4(Octo-channel)


I honestly dont see that happening as the die would just be way too massive. Even with the process node shrink those numbers would put the die somewhere around 500mm² even without l3 cache onboard. It is technically doable, but the failure rate would be huge. Now I can realistically see a FirePro APU getting 8 cores, but I would think 12 would be the absolute max we will see on this process node.


----------



## Castaa

I've been thinking about the possibility of a 6-core Kaveri. Shouldn't the die shrink allow for more space for 50% more cores over Trinity? The Kaveri GPU isn't a huge increase. Maybe it's something for the step between Kaveri and Excavator.

Are the Dual core Trinity models simply Quad core models with 2 cores disabled or are they a different smaller design?

Though I have my doubts. I don't see why they wouldn't have made the initial design be 6-cores to reduce the difference between Vishera and Kaveri. Though maybe that's the reason. 6-core Kaveri is only at best going equal the performance of an 8-core Vishera, so why do it? Modern games fully utilizing 6 or 8-cores aren't going run well on Kaveri sans a discrete GPU anyway.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> I've been thinking about the possibility of a 6-core Kaveri. Shouldn't the die shrink allow for more space for 50% more cores over Trinity? The Kaveri GPU isn't a huge increase. Maybe it's something for the step between Kaveri and Excavator.
> 
> Are the Dual core Trinity models simply Quad core models with 2 cores disabled or are they a different smaller design?


Same design but with two cores disabled

Die shrink will allow more space, but the core is also getting some more things in them. Moving up to a six core design on the smaller process node is definitely doable


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> I've been thinking about the possibility of a 6-core Kaveri. Shouldn't the die shrink allow for more space for 50% more cores over Trinity? The Kaveri GPU isn't a huge increase. Maybe it's something for the step between Kaveri and Excavator.
> 
> Are the Dual core Trinity models simply Quad core models with 2 cores disabled or are they a different smaller design?
> 
> Though I have my doubts. I don't see why they wouldn't have made the initial design be 6-cores to reduce the difference between Vishera and Kaveri. Though maybe that's the reason. 6-core Kaveri is only at best going equal the performance of an 8-core Vishera, so why do it? Modern games fully utilizing 6 or 8-cores aren't going run well on Kaveri sans a discrete GPU anyway.


There was leaked documentation a while back that suggested 6 cores and GDDR5 support for Kaveri. I think its safe to say GDDR5 support wont be happening (leaked FM2+ boards don't support it). Tho there is still the possibility of a six core APU. I honestly think that there wont be one, and that Kaveri will remain a dual module chip. As the smaller manufacturing process for both the CPU + GPU will indeed free up die space for extra cores. Tho you have to consider AMD wanting to fill that space with more GCN cores. Would you rather have a six core with like 192 ALU's, or a quad core with 512 ALU's. The answer is quite clear as GCN cores will offer way more performance in gaming and compute. You also have to take into consideration that a lot of the free space will be consumed by the ARM core they are putting into these APU's for HSA support. So I think we will see quad core Steamrollers, with HSA, and 384 or more GCN cores. I imagine we will see a A10 model that packs 512 GCN cores as 384 wouldn't be that big of an improvement over the current tweaked VLIW4.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> I imagine we will see a A10 model that packs 512 GCN cores as 384 wouldn't be that big of an improvement over the current tweaked VLIW4.


Ya it's been more or less confirmed that the highest end Kaveri will have 512 GCN cores.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Would you rather have a six core with like 192 ALU's, or a quad core with 512 ALU's. The answer is quite clear as GCN cores will offer way more performance in gaming and compute


Gaming performance will only improve with higher shader cores if you actually use the integrated graphics. Something I dont care about in the slightest since it still isnt enough to run high res displays with good quality graphics settings. We use discreet GPUs for that. I would much rather have higher core count, higher core speeds, and higher core instructions per clock.


----------



## Seronx

Game performance is more limited on memory bandwidth, TMUs, and ROPs rather than compute core count.

More compute cores will not increase your frame rate but can increase physics performance in the background.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Gaming performance will only improve with higher shader cores if you actually use the integrated graphics. Something I dont care about in the slightest since it still isnt enough to run high res displays with good quality graphics settings. We use discreet GPUs for that. I would much rather have higher core count, higher core speeds, and higher core instructions per clock.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Game performance is more limited on memory bandwidth, TMUs, and ROPs rather than compute core count.
> 
> More compute cores will not increase your frame rate but can increase physics performance in the background.


You also have to keep HSA in mind, 512 ALU's with four cores will go a lot further than say six cores with 192 ALU's. The idea behind Kaveri is to begin using the iGPU for a lot of heavy number crunching operations so the CPU doesn't have to do them. GCN cores > Steamroller cores.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> You also have to keep HSA in mind, 512 ALU's with four cores will go a lot further than say six cores with 192 ALU's. The idea behind Kaveri is to begin using the iGPU for a lot of heavy number crunching operations so the CPU doesn't have to do them. GCN cores > Steamroller cores.


HSA doesn't matter in the slightest for my gaming performance, it is to allow increased performance in normal programs that can make use of GPU compute situations. I also dont use any programs that would benefit from GPU acceleration in the first place. By the time it will matter for gaming, all these processors will be many generations old. So still don't really care...


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> There was leaked documentation a while back that suggested 6 cores and GDDR5 support for Kaveri. I think its safe to say GDDR5 support wont be happening (leaked FM2+ boards don't support it). Tho there is still the possibility of a six core APU. I honestly think that there wont be one, and that Kaveri will remain a dual module chip. As the smaller manufacturing process for both the CPU + GPU will indeed free up die space for extra cores. Tho you have to consider AMD wanting to fill that space with more GCN cores. Would you rather have a six core with like 192 ALU's, or a quad core with 512 ALU's. The answer is quite clear as GCN cores will offer way more performance in gaming and compute. You also have to take into consideration that a lot of the free space will be consumed by the ARM core they are putting into these APU's for HSA support. So I think we will see quad core Steamrollers, with HSA, and 384 or more GCN cores. I imagine we will see a A10 model that packs 512 GCN cores as 384 wouldn't be that big of an improvement over the current tweaked VLIW4.


And Excavator on a 20nm process? There could be an enthusiast 6 core version with that huge die shrink and still have enough room to further expand gpu cores beyond the 512 in A10 Kaveri.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> And Excavator on a 20nm process? There could be an enthusiast 6 core version with that huge die shrink and still have enough room to further expand gpu cores beyond the 512 in A10 Kaveri.


I don't think anyone knows yet.

Since Excavator is scheduled to be only a year or so (2015) behind Steamroller, I would not expect it to use a different scale process. That's how it ended up with Bulldozer & Piledriver. But that's just a guess of course.


----------



## istudy92

Keep talking guys this thread interesting!


----------



## Seronx

Everything is reliant on Volcanic Islands and what node it is on.


----------



## D0ppelganger

And here is confirmation for the non-believers and naysayers http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-confirms-kaveri-will-be-in-the-hands-of-enthusiasts-in-2014/50308.html


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> And here is confirmation for the non-believers and naysayers http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-confirms-kaveri-will-be-in-the-hands-of-enthusiasts-in-2014/50308.html


Thanks for the article, clears up some of the speculation, though not mine, I kind of figured this would happen.


----------



## istudy92

Reading this thread i feel like getting an apu...


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> And here is confirmation for the non-believers and naysayers http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-confirms-kaveri-will-be-in-the-hands-of-enthusiasts-in-2014/50308.html


"Non-believers" What in hell does that mean? because AMD may be 5 weeks late with their product we are supposed to bow and kiss your feet. That was an assinine remark.


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> Reading this thread i feel like getting an apu...


lol same


----------



## anubis44

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> tick is a die shrink, tock is an architecture change (or some other significant change, just depends on what intel is focusing on).
> 
> So I don't really think Vishera matches either of those.


My understanding is that a 'tock' is an architectural change that leads to significant improvement in performance, and a tick is merely a tweak in architecture or a small bump in clock speed (as you would get from a smaller process), so the move from Bulldozer to Vishera is only a 'tick' because there were only minor improvements made to the architecture. The change in process is not part of the definition -- it just has tended to accompany 'ticks' in the past, since it is easier to simply shrink the same basic circuit layout, than to both move to a new process size and change the circuit architecture at the same time.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anubis44*
> 
> My understanding is that a 'tock' is an architectural change that leads to significant improvement in performance, and a tick is merely a tweak in architecture or a small bump in clock speed (as you would get from a smaller process), so the move from Bulldozer to Vishera is only a 'tick' because there were only minor improvements made to the architecture.


Intel coined the tick-tock term for an alternating production cycle where major architectural shifts are kept on the same manufacturing process node, then when the architecture is mature, they move to a smaller process. This is so they don't lump together all the potential design and yield problems that can come with both.

Neither the tick nor tock implies much about performance in and of itself.

AMD hasn't locked themselves into such a model and Bulldozer to Vishera wouldn't be either a tick or tock as it's not a new architecture, and not a die shrink.

Steamroller is a fairly major update, as well half-node shrink. Steamroller could be called both a tick and a tock, or more of a tock.

Anyway, the whole tick-tock stuff doesn't apply easily to AMD.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> Steamroller is a fairly major update, as well half-node shrink.


Do to process tricks Steamroller will be a full node shrink.

32nm PD-SOI/11 track -> 28nm Bulk/9 track


----------



## darkelixa

Do you think steamroller will be on the am3+ or an am4?


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Do you think steamroller will be on the am3+ or an am4?


Currently it looks like Steamroller will only be FM2+.


----------



## darkelixa

So it would be pointless buying an am3+ mainboard with a 8350 when the steam roller on f2+ will be a better option?


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> So it would be pointless buying an am3+ mainboard with a 8350 when the steam roller on f2+ will be a better option?


The problem with a SR-based FM2+ APU is that it maxes out with only two modules, unlike the 4 that the 8350 has.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> So it would be pointless buying an am3+ mainboard with a 8350 when the steam roller on f2+ will be a better option?


Absolutely false. An 8350 has 8 cores and has much more power with multithreaded applications than a 4 core steamroller. The Kaveri 4 core will only be superior with single threaded apps. If they later release a 6 core steamroller that would be equal to or slightly better than an FX-8350 overall.


----------



## darkelixa

Oh wow, so waiting for the new steam roller is not really required and just buy the 8350 now?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Currently it looks like Steamroller will only be FM2+.


The key word is currently. The new AMD road map will be avaiable by early November. Then we will know if an am3+ steamroller will be in the pipeline.


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The key word is currently. The new AMD road map will be avaiable by early November. Then we will know if an am3+ stemroller will be in the pipeline.


There's no SR-based server chips (except for 2-module APUs) on their 2014 roadmap, so I wouldn't bet on any SR-based AM3+ desktop chips either.


----------



## darkelixa

Oh man , looks like either buying an amd 8350 or slashing extra cash on an i7


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> Oh man , looks like either buying an amd 8350 or slashing extra cash on an i7


If you can, wait till november and then buy.
With AM3+ there might be a SR-FX chip in 2014 or some kind of a refresh. Excavator FX will be using a new socket in 2015.
I don't know if LGA 1150 will get a new chip next year but Skylake (2015) will use a new socket.
So, AMD or Intel, you will be upgrading to a new mobo in 2015.
Only FM2+ will take you through 2015 i believe.


----------



## darkelixa

Not sure if excavator will come to play if they are going to make all there cpus onto the one socket, i believe amd are going purely to apus only


----------



## NaroonGTX

There's nothing but conjecture right now. Has everyone already forgotten that thread where there was the email posted, where an AMD guy confirmed that Socket AM3+ would get further offerings?

We'll have to wait for the new roadmaps coming in a few months before we start saying there won't be an AM3+ SR. There's no logical reason for AMD to suddenly kill off the FX line of CPU's. They won't go APU-only until perhaps after Excavator, whenever their "next" architecture comes to fruition.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

3 things people...

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> I have realized something - since I last viewed the Roadmap that stated SR in 2014 to now, several things have changed. Next gen consoles, their primary fabrication plant changed to 28nm, and they canceled their exclusivity contract with that plant. Still, I wouldn't see them delaying SR to 2015. That would be stupid. It's also stupid how everyone says that AM3+ will end with PD. Yea, release a socket that lasts only 2 years... Smart


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> But trying to argue that it might not be released in 2014 means it would be pushed back another year. If it isn't released in 2014, then it will be very late 2013, otherwise - that is suicide for AMD. Going that long with no new CPU's would mean less sales while having operation costs. I'm not going into business, but we all know how stupid that would be.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> We'll have to wait for the new roadmaps coming in a few months before we start saying there won't be an AM3+ SR. There's no logical reason for AMD to suddenly kill off the FX line of CPU's.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> There's no SR-based server chips (except for 2-module APUs) on their 2014 roadmap, so I wouldn't bet on any SR-based AM3+ desktop chips either.


That is merely a mechanical interpretation of past practice. There is no theoretical or practical reason that the server chip must be available first. What other mechanical interpretations of past AMD practice are you going to conjer up next from your cauldrons?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> There's no SR-based server chips (except for 2-module APUs) on their 2014 roadmap, so I wouldn't bet on any SR-based AM3+ desktop chips either.


I don't gamble. It is not out of the realm of possibility for the 4th quarter. Either that or a 6 to 8 core Kaveri.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There's nothing but conjecture right now. Has everyone already forgotten that thread where there was the email posted, where an AMD guy confirmed that Socket AM3+ would get further offerings?
> 
> We'll have to wait for the new roadmaps coming in a few months before we start saying there won't be an AM3+ SR. There's no logical reason for AMD to suddenly kill off the FX line of CPU's. They won't go APU-only until perhaps after Excavator, whenever their "next" architecture comes to fruition.


That was me after a long telephone discussion with AMD Global marketing Director John Taylor. There was also a copy of an email from Gary ? Of AMD.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is merely a mechanical interpretation of past practice. There is no theoretical or practical reason that the server chip must be available first. What other mechanical interpretations of past AMD practice are you going to conjer up next from your cauldrons?


Quoting someone from a different forum, not sure how legit his statement though:
"However, the lack of 6 or 8 core steamroller CPUs on the server roadmap is truely worrying, AMD engineers have said time & time again that development of new cores starts in the server segment & then trickles down to consumers, so if it's not available for servers it is not available period."

Steamroller or not, i don't think they are planning on going all the way to 2015 without a refresh in 2014, again i doesn't make sense for them to provide a refresh that is not SR. They already did that this year.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think it's easily possible for them to make a SR desktop SKU without releasing the server variant first. They might not even make a server variant (besides the APU version). While I do remember that statement they made^, it's not like AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc. haven't said things, and then changed their minds later on.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I think it's easily possible for them to make a SR desktop SKU without releasing the server variant first. They might not even make a server variant (besides the APU version). While I do remember that statement they made^, it's not like AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc. haven't said things, and then changed their minds later on.


as I stated before it would be a stupid move for amd to cut the fx line so quick.. almost suicide


----------



## NaroonGTX

I agree. In regards to Vishera and AM3+... People have to remember that originally, there wasn't even a codename Vishera part. There was Komodo, which was basically a ten-core Piledriver CPU-only part, which was gonna be in the FM2 board. So AMD was planning their "unified socket" idea quite some time ago, but for some reason decided to release it on AM3+ instead. I think AMD was trying to kill off AM3+ but decided not to, most likely to avoid a huge backlash.

In regards to HSA and gaming, I just read that supposedly AMD worked with EA and Square Enix, and their engines will be optimized to allow for APU acceleration. Hmm... APU's just get more interesting by the second.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> as I stated before it would be a stupid move for amd to cut the fx line so quick.. almost suicide


There is no way they can get away with not producing 6 and 8 core cpu's over the long run. It will cut the heart out of their business, the enthusiast and power users. It would from a PR standpoint be a kiss of death. The enthusiast and power user base promotes the product all through the media. We are the smbassadors of their product brand and push the acceptance into the mass market. I made this point in an email to John Taylor, the Global Marketing director for their cpus and apus.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> ...
> In regards to HSA and gaming, I just read that supposedly AMD worked with EA and Square Enix, and their engines will be optimized to allow for APU acceleration. Hmm... APU's just get more interesting by the second.


I'm excited about the APUs, just hope their multithreading performance isn't bad.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> I'm excited about the APUs, just hope their multithreading performance isn't bad.


It will be much better than what Bulldozer/Piledriver is currently capable of


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> It will be much better than what Bulldozer/Piledriver is currently capable of


Assuming a 25% increase in multi-threading with the decoding problem solved and other improvements. The 4 core steamroller would be equal to a 5 core Piledriver. Since I have an 8 core Piledriver FX-8350, I would have 60% better performance than 4 core Steamroller in multi-threaded apps. There is no comparison with 4 core steam roller to 8 core or even 6 core Piledriver in multi-threading.
We need at least a 6 core steamroller to come out ahead of our current multi-threading performance. Single threaded performance should be about 15% better so it that one small area steamroller will be better.


----------



## 122512

The fact of the matter is; and forgive me if this was posted earlier: AMD is planning to opt out of the desktop market anyways.

Here, let me find those slides...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5503/understanding-amds-roadmap-new-direction

Here they are;

I think as far as desktop CPUs go, there will just be APUs. Atleast, that what I draw from these slides.


----------



## darkelixa

If they were planing to OPT out then why has it not been said and is only speculation


----------



## NaroonGTX

So they're gonna opt out of the desktop market? APU's are still part of the desktop market. The only question is whether or not there will be a Steamroller FX part (which I, personally, don't really care about because for the last few years, I've been using APU's as my CPU anyway and haven't truly needed more than four cores, but I respect that a lot of enthusiasts would love SR 6- and 8-core parts.)

It's still just conjecture based on old roadmaps. Even though that article is from Feb. 2012, it's interesting how they had Piledriver still listed as lasting throughout 2013, and Kaveri was still planned to *ship* in 2013. It would be really disappointing for them to kill off the FX line hypothetically, especially after all that marketing for it since Bulldozer. Why would you hype up an 8-core part, and then *not* release an updated version with your latest revision to the uarch which would get rid of most of the things that held back the original performance premise? It just don't make any sense to me. I hope AMD aren't that daft, even with the desktop market dying slowly.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> So they're gonna opt out of the desktop market? APU's are still part of the desktop market. The only question is whether or not there will be a Steamroller FX part (which I, personally, don't really care about because for the last few years, I've been using APU's as my CPU anyway and haven't truly needed more than four cores, but I respect that a lot of enthusiasts would love SR 6- and 8-core parts.)
> 
> It's still just conjecture based on old roadmaps. Even though that article is from Feb. 2012, it's interesting how they had Piledriver still listed as lasting throughout 2013, and Kaveri was still planned to *ship* in 2013. It would be really disappointing for them to kill off the FX line hypothetically, especially after all that marketing for it since Bulldozer. Why would you hype up an 8-core part, and then *not* release an updated version with your latest revision to the uarch which would get rid of most of the things that held back the original performance premise? It just don't make any sense to me. I hope AMD aren't that daft, even with the desktop market dying slowly.


Nothing in AMD's presentation gives any definite finality to the FX line. Either they will likely do a large core FX on AM3+ or they will do a 6 to 8 core Kaveri sometime later in 2014. Otherwise they go to hell. Anything less will be unacceptable to the enthusiasts and power users. A 4 core Kaveri is no better than a 5 core FX series. I would lose 37% in multithread performance if I went from an 8350 FX to Kaveri 4 core. HSA will not be widely deployed for another 2 years. AMD's new road map had better deal with this reality.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Nothing in AMD's presentation gives any definite finality to the FX line. Either they will likely do a large core FX on AM3+ or they will do a 6 to 8 core Kaveri sometime later in 2014. Otherwise they go to hell. Anything less will be unacceptable to the enthusiasts and power users. A 4 core Kaveri is no better than a 5 core FX series. I would lose 37% in multithread performance if I went from an 8350 FX to Kaveri 4 core. HSA will not be widely deployed for another 2 years. AMD's new road map had better deal with this reality.


If AMD does a 6 or 8 core steamroller, it would arguably be a better fit for the FM2+ socket. Here's why:

- AM3+ only has one HT link (12.8GB/s max bandwidth) vs. FM2+ supporting 16x native PCIe 3.0 lanes (32GB/s max bandwidth)
- same dual channel DDR3 as AM3+
- supports chips with 100W TDP
- simpler, cheaper boards due to only having a southbridge external to CPU (assuming unified northbridge used)
- AMD desire to unify sockets


----------



## NaroonGTX

I wouldn't mind the SR FX series moving over to FM2+. FM2+ is arguably a better overall socket than AM3+ anyway. They'd be better off doing the socket unification now and just getting it over with.


----------



## EniGma1987

Wow lot of posts here to catch up on. This thread was knocked down quite a bit in my Recent Activity list so I hadn't seen it lately.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It would be really disappointing for them to kill off the FX line hypothetically, especially after all that marketing for it since Bulldozer. Why would you hype up an 8-core part, and then *not* release an updated version with your latest revision to the uarch which would get rid of most of the things that held back the original performance premise? It just don't make any sense to me.


That hype and product design were part of the old system. The new CEO took over and did a LOT of layoffs and restructuring of the company as well as decided to move AMD into a different direction. While everything about the FX line right now is speculation, all of the speculation about there being a Steamroller FX comes from the old crew that is no longer running things at AMD. All speculation about the discontinuation of future FX lines comes from the new AMD having removed products from roadmaps, no info about the future of these products, and the direction the CEO is trying to take the company. But the fact is we just dont know if the FX line was cancelled or if we will see a Steamroller variant, and we wont know till the next roadmap is put out in a few months.

One reason though why a company would want to distance themselves from a product name would be that it has a very bad reputation, the FX line has now become one of those products. It is much like Microsoft with Windows Vista. It was a terrible OS when it came out, but became good from once we had SP1. However Microsoft decided to release a "whole new OS" that was basically Vista SP1 and called it Windows 7 because the public had already decided Vista was a terrible OS so even though 7 was nothing but a tuned up version of Vista, the general public now hailed it as the greatest thing since XP and the new standard. So Microsoft took a product that was a huge failure and turned it into the largest success as of late just by changing the name. I could see AMD doing something similar to remove the stain that Zambezi left on the FX name.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Wow lot of posts here to catch up on. This thread was knocked down quite a bit in my Recent Activity list so I hadn't seen it lately.
> That hype and product design were part of the old system. The new CEO took over and did a LOT of layoffs and restructuring of the company as well as decided to move AMD into a different direction. While everything about the FX line right now is speculation, all of the speculation about there being a Steamroller FX comes from the old crew that is no longer running things at AMD. All speculation about the discontinuation of future FX lines comes from the new AMD having removed products from roadmaps, no info about the future of these products, and the direction the CEO is trying to take the company. But the fact is we just dont know if the FX line was cancelled or if we will see a Steamroller variant, and we wont know till the next roadmap is put out in a few months.
> 
> One reason though why a company would want to distance themselves from a product name would be that it has a very bad reputation, the FX line has now become one of those products. it is much like Microsoft with Windows Vista. It was a terrible OS when it came out, but became from after SP1. However Microsoft decided to release a "whole new OS" that was basically Vista SP1 and called it Windows 7 because the public had already decided Vista was a terrible OS so even though 7 was nothing but a tuned up version of Vista, the general public now hailed it as the greatest thing since XP and the new standard. So Microsoft took a product that was a huge failure and turned it into the largest success as of late just by changing the name. I could see AMD doing something similar to remove the stain that Zambezi left on the FX name.


oh AMD Just name it Phenom phoenix just so I can say it rises again from the ashes









p/s i'm on vista...


----------



## NaroonGTX

Great post Enigma, that sounds logical to me. I could see them bringing back the Phenom name with Phenom III. If Steamroller would fix most of the issues with BD/PD and put up decent performance to boot, people would hop on board definitely. Even though it'd still be Bulldozer architecture, that naming scheme would drum up a lot of hype and further distance it away from the disappointment most people associate with Zambezi-era Bulldozer.


----------



## MrJava

Maybe Phenom is old hat as a brand name as well, a completely new brand name would be nice.

Wish they had stuck with it and released Komodo on FM2. 10 piledriver cores, full L3 cache, and on-die PCIe 3.0 for the then-new radeon 7000 series.


----------



## anubis44

Yes, I realize that what you're saying is true, but the larger performance increases are generally associated with architectural changes (the 'tocks' as Intel calls them) rather than die shrinks. I was trying to respond to the spirit of the question. Undoubtedly, the Bulldozer was akin to a 'tick' and a 'tock'at the same time--generally a big no no, (and that may have been part of why AMD had so much grief with it). Steamroller will be akin to a 'tock', as it represents a significant architectural departure from Bulldozer /Piledriver.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> Intel coined the tick-tock term for an alternating production cycle where major architectural shifts are kept on the same manufacturing process node, then when the architecture is mature, they move to a smaller process. This is so they don't lump together all the potential design and yield problems that can come with both.
> 
> Neither the tick nor tock implies much about performance in and of itself.
> 
> AMD hasn't locked themselves into such a model and Bulldozer to Vishera wouldn't be either a tick or tock as it's not a new architecture, and not a die shrink.
> 
> Steamroller is a fairly major update, as well half-node shrink. Steamroller could be called both a tick and a tock, or more of a tock.
> 
> Anyway, the whole tick-tock stuff doesn't apply easily to AMD.


,


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Wish they had stuck with it and released Komodo on FM2. 10 piledriver cores, full L3 cache, and on-die PCIe 3.0 for the then-new radeon 7000 series.


It also supported IOMMU v2, where the RD890/RD990 chipsets only support IOMMU v1.26.

990FX -
http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/34434-IOMMU-Rev_1.26_2-11-09.pdf
A85X -
http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/48882.pdf

You need 2.0 to use the core protocols of HSA. Where 2.5 allows the more advance protocols of HSA.

A88X -
IOMMU rev 2.5 specification(PDF doesn't yet exist)


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> as I stated before it would be a stupid move for amd to cut the fx line so quick.. almost suicide


I one hundred percent disagree with this statement, I believe that if AMD were to continue to pursue the FX line is a big waste of time/resources and therefore money. It has already put a huge whole in their pocket and will continue to do so. The enthusiast market now belongs to Intel and it will continue to belong to Intel in the foreseeable future. The FX line is basically already a server chip, where AMD is making much more money in right now than Intel. The golden rule of business is to create something for the masses and the APU delivers just that. The largest market is not us overclockers and techies, but the type of people who only use their computers for light gaming and web surfing,(i.e; laptop/mobile devices) which is the exact target audience of the APU.


----------



## Stormscion

As consumers it does not matter much to us what next line up is named. FX or Phenom or anything else. IT matters maybe for AMD and it is hard choice for them.

What is worse for AMD:
-GO with FX that has tarnished name but they invested a lot of money into marketing it recently it still has buzz to it.
-GO with phenom that is safe bet and has decent reputation. But it is old name.
-GO with new name and have to invest a lot of money into marketing it again.
-GO with ending of FX line no more anythign but APU?
Its hard choice.

What i would just like to see is that they come out







Considering the steamroller improvements it should be pretty exciting product if it comes out.
Ofc that i would like to see 6 and 8 module 12 and 16core steamrollers and excavators on am4 but it is not likely.

I really would not like that they kill off FX line but dont have 4m8core offering.
I would love to have 4m8core APU based on SR and GCN. That would be awesome. On FM2+ or AM3+ or AM4 i dont care


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stormscion*
> 
> I woudlnt mind if they move towards full APU offering. Altho i would like if AMD would offer 4m8core APU. That would be neet. On FM2+ or Am3+ or even AM4 i dont mind any of those tbh


AM3+ is a terrible platform in comparison to even FM2. I wouldn't blame AMD for potentially dropping AM3+ and not wasting their time or resources with it. Instead they can move over to their APU platform which is already a perfectly stable platform. Everything from the north bridge is already built directly into the APU so the step forward to a more unified machine is already there (Intel's already done this). We also would of seen six or even eight cores by now if it was possible. Tho the manufacturing process doesn't make it possible as there is no room on the die for the extra cores. This is another factor as to why AMD's APU's don't have any L3 cache, other than it saving on cost. I personally think AMD should drop AM3+ off the face of the planet and keep moving forward with FM2+. All they would need to do is take the Kaveri APU, remove the iGPU, drop in two more modules and L3. Then the A88X platform will be miles ahead of what the 990FX platform was ever was capable of. I would love a six or eight core FM2+ chip that offers better single and multi threaded performance than a FX-8350 ever could. Plus also support PCIe 3.0 and all that new good stuff that Steamroller will support on the FM2+ platform. It's a possibility everything I just said could be true, maybe AMD has thought about it the same way. AM3+ is really a dead end for AMD, and they need another enthusiast platform. The best way to go would be combine both the budget APU and enthusiast market together. I mean think about the way they have the Athlon x4 750k on the market. Sure it's only because of chips with a bad iGPU, tho they can clearly do that on a larger scale and just purposely make an eight core Athlon x8 850k with L3.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stormscion*
> 
> As consumers it does not matter much to us what next line up is named. FX or Phenom or anything else. IT matters maybe for AMD and it is hard choice for them.
> 
> What is worse for AMD:
> -GO with FX that has tarnished name but they invested a lot of money into marketing it recently it still has buzz to it.
> -GO with phenom that is safe bet and has decent reputation. But it is old name.
> -GO with new name and have to invest a lot of money into marketing it again.
> -GO with ending of FX line no more anythign but APU?
> Its hard choice.
> 
> What i would just like to see is that they come out
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Considering the steamroller improvements it should be pretty exciting product if it comes out.
> Ofc that i would like to see 6 and 8 module 12 and 16core steamrollers and excavators on am4 but it is not likely.
> 
> I really would not like that they kill off FX line but dont have 4m8core offering.
> I would love to have 4m8core APU based on SR and GCN. That would be awesome. On FM2+ or AM3+ or AM4 i dont care


I don't care what they call it, but if AM3 + is dead and FM2+ is the new unified socket , AMD must sometime in the coming year have 6 and 8 core offerings. What equitas Absum says is not quite correct. The low-end of the market is not the most profitable. The mid tier is. 4 core Kaveri can never come close to equalling let alone surpassing I5 . It is absolutely important not to concede the mid tier of the market or else you are going to be considered a "junk" cpu manufacturer in manypeoples eyes. It takes both 6 and 8 core to equalize and surpass I5 in the steamroller architecture. That must be implemented to earn the respect of reviewers and enthusiasts. AMD has always been a big core company it can not give value and performance without that. Anything else will be a ride into oblivion for the future of AMD. HSa will clearly take 2 or more years before widespread appllication support. . Intel will see how HSA does and then throw its full weight behind it. So HSA will not be the equalizer for AMD in the mid-tier market over the long run. It will keep them in the game. You must inch closer in single thread and maintain multi-threaded performance. So eaquitas is dead wrong on his market assessment. There has never been any company that has thrived just with lower market segment processors . Mid tier is where the battle matters most.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> I mean think about the way they have the Athlon x4 750k on the market. Sure it's only because of chips with a bad iGPU, tho they can clearly do that on a larger scale and just purposely make an eight core Athlon x8 850k with L3.


Agreed. I wouldn't care at all if they killed off AM3+ and just went to FM2+ as their unified socket. It makes the most sense. They could just bring back the Phenom naming (back in the day, the Athlon II CPU's were literally just Phenom II's without L3 cache) and bring the hexa- and octo-core chips to FM2+. FM2 is already better than AM3+ as a platform, and FM2+ is just sweeter. They should just do the unified socket now and get it over with.


----------



## roofrider

12, 16 cores? Why? Sounds outrageous to me.
FM2+ is expected to support the Excavator APU, i doubt if FM2+ is the unified socket they were talking about.
Also not sure if DDR4 will require a new chipset and socket or just the mobo change.


----------



## darkelixa

How is fm2 better than am3+? the amd 8350 smashes all the current apu cpus


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> 12, 16 cores? Why? Sounds outrageous to me.
> FM2+ is expected to support the Excavator APU, i doubt if FM2+ is the unified socket they were talking about.
> Also not sure if DDR4 will require a new chipset and socket or just the mobo change.


You are inaccurate. Excavator has been speculated to be on FM3 not FM2+. DDR4 will certainly require a new chipset and as I said FM3 for Excavator.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Excavator will very likely have a dual-IMC which supports DDR3 *and* DDR4. AMD has said they're sticking with FM2, which means FM2/FM2+. Excavator will very likely work in FM2+ with no problems, and if people want DDR4 for more memory bandwidth they could get an FM3 board for DDR4 memory.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *darkelixa*
> 
> How is fm2 better than am3+? the amd 8350 smashes all the current apu cpus


The 8350 has 2 more modules and an L3 cache. I also suspect that a lot of reviewers fail to completely disable the integrated graphics when benchmarking with discrete. This would hinder the ability of the CPU to turbo more effectively.

The FM2+ socket itself doesn't prevent AMD from putting an 8-core steamroller with L3 cache and no i-GPU on it.
Alternatively, AMD could shrink the L2 cache per module to 512KB and use the saved die space for an L3 cache and maintain the i-GPU.

For Crossfire, AM3+ is bottlenecked by the fact it only has one HT link to the chipset (providing only 12.8GB/s bandwidth max albeit at a lower latency than PCIe) while the chipset provides 42 PCIe lanes. All the APUs so far have had at least 16 PCIe lanes on chip with higher aggregate bandwidth. Unfortunately PCIe is not great for chip-to-chip interconnect so HT will probably live on at the higher end.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I don't care what they call it, but if AM3 + is dead and FM2+ is the new unified socket , AMD must sometime in the coming year have 6 and 8 core offerings. What equitas Absum says is not quite correct. The low-end of the market is not the most profitable. The mid tier is. 4 core Kaveri can never come close to equalling let alone surpassing I5 . It is absolutely important not to concede the mid tier of the market or else you are going to be considered a "junk" cpu manufacturer in manypeoples eyes. It takes both 6 and 8 core to equalize and surpass I5 in the steamroller architecture. That must be implemented to earn the respect of reviewers and enthusiasts. AMD has always been a big core company it can not give value and performance without that. Anything else will be a ride into oblivion for the future of AMD. HSa will clearly take 2 or more years before widespread appllication support. . Intel will see how HSA does and then throw its full weight behind it. So HSA will not be the equalizer for AMD in the mid-tier market over the long run. It will keep them in the game. You must inch closer in single thread and maintain multi-threaded performance. So eaquitas is dead wrong on his market assessment. There has never been any company that has thrived just with lower market segment processors . Mid tier is where the battle matters most.


I estimate that kaveri will have CPU performance somewhere between a sandy bridge i3 and i5. Kaveri mobile will probably be very competitive given its graphics, raw performance, and perf/watt improvements. Its only a shame that they couldn't get it out the door earlier.

There will probably be higher core count CPUs/APUs for the FM2+/FM3 socket, but not in 2014. Why? Because then a server version would've been on the server road map. Berlin (Kaveri server chip) was aimed for web hosting and HPC, both of which need the greatest number of threads possible per socket.


----------



## os2wiz

[quote name="EniGma1987" url="/t/1404574/steamroller/270#post_20595464"

One reason though why a company would want to distance themselves from a product name would be that it has a very bad reputation, the FX line has now become one of those products. It is much like Microsoft with Windows Vista. It was a terrible OS when it came out, but became good from once we had SP1. However Microsoft decided to release a "whole new OS" that was basically Vista SP1 and called it Windows 7 because the public had already decided Vista was a terrible OS so even though 7 was nothing but a tuned up version of Vista, the general public now hailed it as the greatest thing since XP and the new standard. So Microsoft took a product that was a huge failure and turned it into the largest success as of late just by changing the name. I could see AMD doing something similar to remove the stain that Zambezi left on the FX name.[/quote]

I wholly disagree with your characterization of the current FX lineup having a bad reputation. That is only among hardcore fan boys and web enthusiast sites that are Intel sponsored or Intel driven like Tech Spot and Anand. Most other sites of reputation say the FX line is competitive at its price point.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Excavator will very likely have a dual-IMC which supports DDR3 *and* DDR4. AMD has said they're sticking with FM2, which means FM2/FM2+. Excavator will very likely work in FM2+ with no problems, and if people want DDR4 for more memory bandwidth they could get an FM3 board for DDR4 memory.


That's what i read too, whoever wants to use DDR4 will have to get a different mobo. Think that's what they did during the DDR2-DDR3 transition.
I don't care about DDR4, unless it's cheap lol.

Here's one that says it'll be using the same A88X chipset.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/new-confirmed-details-on-amds-2014-apu-lineup-kaveri-delayed/47455.html


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Alternatively, AMD could shrink the L2 cache per module to 512KB and use the saved die space for an L3 cache and maintain the i-GPU.


That would not quite work out, the savings in die space would give a small bit for L3, but you can just replace the same regions of one cache and name it something new and it magically works. This would require a redesign of the entire die layout, and it would also only give a tiny amount of l3 cache. Not enough to make a real difference, while each module would take a hit because the cores now have to make a lot more trips to RAM because their own cache space was halved. L2 is the cache that each core has, it is shared between the module and allocated to what each core needs to use. L3 is solely for module communication on die and is not used for the same data as l2 cache. So while this change you propose would slightly increase multi-threading performance due to modules being able to send small bits of data between them, single-threaded performance would take a hit because each core has a lot more latency added to it from time spent going back and forth to RAM. Additionally I would like to point out that AMD's l3 cache in this architecture is quite slow, and really not much faster than the RAM is.

Although I know this will never happen, I personally would love to see a triple module, six core design (not an 8 core with two cut out from failed units) where the l2 cache is quadrupled in size, and 12-16MB of l3 cache is added, while there is no iGPU in the die at all. With the new process node this should end up being smaller in size than current APU's but would give a very large increase in CPU performance due to each core having much larger area to keep its data being worked on, coupled with the increased decoder count to actually make proper use of this larger cache space, and modules being able to communicate on die without going to RAm because of the large l3 cache space. This design (over Piledriver) would probably give something like 40-45% increased single threaded performance and also give increased (again over APU Piledriver cores) multithreading performance of probably 30%. It wont happen because AMD has not shown any interest in a true six core design, and would probably not want to do this on the FM2+ platform and design something without the iGPU, but man would it be awesome to have!

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> I don't care about DDR4, unless it's cheap lol.


You should. Current Richland based APUs already bottleneck from RAM bandwidth in games. The new lineup will be incredibly constrained by current bandwidth. We either have to do something like get MB's out with a couple soldered on GDDR5 chips like there were some rumors about or move to DDR4 to help alleviate the bandwidth choking we currently have. That only matters for APUs though when the GPU is trying to do hard work. CPU only tasks have lots more bandwidth than it currently needs.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Although I know this will never happen, I personally would love to see a triple module, six core design (not an 8 core with two cut out from failed units) where the l2 cache is quadrupled in size, and 12-16MB of l3 cache is added, while there is no iGPU in the die at all. With the new process node this should end up being smaller in size than current APU's but would give a very large increase in CPU performance due to each core having much larger area to keep its data being worked on, coupled with the increased decoder count to actually make proper use of this larger cache space, and modules being able to communicate on die without going to RAm because of the large l3 cache space. This design (over Piledriver) would probably give something like 40-45% increased single threaded performance and also give increased (again over APU Piledriver cores) multithreading performance of probably 30%. It wont happen because AMD has not shown any interest in a true six core design, and would probably not want to do this on the FM2+ platform and design something without the iGPU, but man would it be awesome to have!
> 
> you are right it will never happen. You are talking about a discreet cpu not an apu. Not going to happen. I want an 8 core desktop apu. It's the only way AMD can beat the performance of a I5 4670k with Steamroller. WEcan not just be offered low-tier cpus. I am not an I3 type user nor do I settle for I3 level performance. WE need good mid tier offerings . Multi-thread performance can't be thrown out the window by AMD and that's what will happen if offerings are left to 4 core apu.


----------



## EniGma1987

You do realize that a design like that would put single threaded IPC performance pretty much on par with Ivy bridge right? And multi threading performance right in between an i5 3570K and an i7 3770K. That increase along with the much higher base clock speeds over the Intel cores would mean performance would be up as high or higher than Haswell has stock for stock. That is easily considered "mid tier", IMO even high end, and would be a very powerful processor. Sure they both can OC, and both AMD and Intel seem to top out in overclocks pretty close to each other, so in our enthusiast market segment there wouldnt be much difference when we are done with the processors, but it would easily bring AMD "back into the game" for great performing processors and stock for stock AMD would be up right on par with Intel's latest offerings. Which is crazy to think about given the deficiency AMD was at just last year.


----------



## MrJava

L2 cache doesn't need to be larger. The size is very good for two threads and has a very high hit rate. However, it is 16-way and therefore has higher latency than smaller 8-way cache. Its also inclusive, so a store would normally be bound by the L1 + L2 cache latency. All the data suggests that client workloads like smaller (256-512KB), low latency caches.

Bulldozer tries to have the best of both worlds (high hit rate and low latency) by using a write-combining cache in between to fold writes together to make better use of L2 bandwidth and decrease average latency.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> That would not quite work out, the savings in die space would give a small bit for L3, but you can just replace the same regions of one cache and name it something new and it magically works. This would require a redesign of the entire die layout, and it would also only give a tiny amount of l3 cache. Not enough to make a real difference, while each module would take a hit because the cores now have to make a lot more trips to RAM because their own cache space was halved. L2 is the cache that each core has, it is shared between the module and allocated to what each core needs to use. L3 is solely for module communication on die and is not used for the same data as l2 cache. So while this change you propose would slightly increase multi-threading performance due to modules being able to send small bits of data between them, single-threaded performance would take a hit because each core has a lot more latency added to it from time spent going back and forth to RAM. Additionally I would like to point out that AMD's l3 cache in this architecture is quite slow, and really not much faster than the RAM is.
> 
> Although I know this will never happen, I personally would love to see a triple module, six core design (not an 8 core with two cut out from failed units) where the l2 cache is quadrupled in size, and 12-16MB of l3 cache is added, while there is no iGPU in the die at all. With the new process node this should end up being smaller in size than current APU's but would give a very large increase in CPU performance due to each core having much larger area to keep its data being worked on, coupled with the increased decoder count to actually make proper use of this larger cache space, and modules being able to communicate on die without going to RAm because of the large l3 cache space. This design (over Piledriver) would probably give something like 40-45% increased single threaded performance and also give increased (again over APU Piledriver cores) multithreading performance of probably 30%. It wont happen because AMD has not shown any interest in a true six core design, and would probably not want to do this on the FM2+ platform and design something without the iGPU, but man would it be awesome to have!
> You should. Current Richland based APUs already bottleneck from RAM bandwidth in games. The new lineup will be incredibly constrained by current bandwidth. We either have to do something like get MB's out with a couple soldered on GDDR5 chips like there were some rumors about or move to DDR4 to help alleviate the bandwidth choking we currently have. That only matters for APUs though when the GPU is trying to do hard work. CPU only tasks have lots more bandwidth than it currently needs.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> That's what i read too, whoever wants to use DDR4 will have to get a different mobo. Think that's what they did during the DDR2-DDR3 transition.
> I don't care about DDR4, unless it's cheap lol.
> 
> Here's one that says it'll be using the same A88X chipset.
> http://vr-zone.com/articles/new-confirmed-details-on-amds-2014-apu-lineup-kaveri-delayed/47455.html


That article is chock full of misinformation about delays in product release. It is released as soon as it ships from AMD . OEM shipping begins in December. Retail in January. So why are you quoting an article with a false headline and false conclusions???? VR-Zone is not a trusted source of information in my opinion.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That article is chock full of misinformation about delays in product release. It is released as soon as it ships from AMD . OEM shipping begins in December. Retail in January. So why are you quoting an article with a false headline and false conclusions???? VR-Zone is not a trusted source of information in my opinion.


I didn't post it to point out the "delay" but rather the use of A88X chipset in 2015.
Here is one from bit-tech, there are various other articles which claim Kaveri's successor "Carrizo" will be using the same socket and chipset but they are all based on a VR Zone China article.
At this point we are not even sure about AMD's 2014 lineup so obviously anything pertaining to 2015 is just speculation based on leaks from unknown sources.
We just have to wait.


----------



## MrJava

Here's an interesting point about steamroller's front end:
If the cores in the module are called A and B.

How decoders issue instruction to INT core/FP scheduler.
Before: A/B/A/B ....
Steamroller: AB/0/AB/0/AB ...

Doesn't seem to be any different from before. 4 ops/core every other cycle.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Here's an interesting point about steamroller's front end:
> If the cores in the module are called A and B.
> 
> How decoders issue instruction to INT core/FP scheduler.
> Before: A/B/A/B ....
> Steamroller: AB/0/AB/0/AB ...
> 
> Doesn't seem to be any different from before. 4 ops/core every other cycle.


Where is your source for how they will function? It looks like you are trying ti imply they will decode for both cores, then skip a cycle, then decode, then skip. Is that correct? If so, doesnt make much sense to tell them to go to sleep every other cycle.

EDIT: AMD is also claiming that by doubling the number of decoders, improving dispatch performance, increasing instruction cache sizes, and improving pre-fetch performance that we will see a 30% increase in operations per cycle. This means we would go from an average of 4 instructions per clock cycle up to 5.2 instructions per clock cycle


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Where is your source for how they will function? It looks like you are trying ti imply they will decode for both cores, then skip a cycle, then decode, then skip. Is that correct? If so, doesnt make much sense to tell them to go to sleep every other cycle.


this ^


----------



## Ghost12

Any confirmed news for this release yet? I will be building new in October and may have to go blue from my current 8320.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Here's an interesting point about steamroller's front end:
> If the cores in the module are called A and B.
> 
> How decoders issue instruction to INT core/FP scheduler.
> Before: A/B/A/B ....
> Steamroller: AB/0/AB/0/AB ...
> 
> Doesn't seem to be any different from before. 4 ops/core every other cycle.


Each integer core has its own decoder with Steamroller. Which means all integer related tasks should be a lot faster. Tho the FPU is still shared so floats are still going to be quite slow. The addition of the extra decoder should increase the operations handled per cycle greatly. As the single decoder with Bulldozer has to dig through the register and offload the instructions one at a time to each core. There is no sequence with Steamroller, as each core has its own decoder. Steamroller is close to being a true quad core again. The only thing notably different now is the shared memory and FPU.

Edit: Here's a basic diagram for comparison between the two.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> It will be much better than what Bulldozer/Piledriver is currently capable of


----------



## jesh462

The rumors for years have been that Steamroller will not come to AM3+, so I don't know why that would change all of a sudden. Heck, there isn't even an Opteron Steamroller part being released without the GPU for them to base an FX chip on. If you ask me, every single sign points to Steamroller being 1-2 module on AM2+.
The whole point of the APU was to make HSA a reality, and Kaveri will do that. (even if all the software is not up to showing it off yet)
You may just end up being better off with an AM2+ board even as an enthusiast.

Or going blue. Either way.
I have a feeling that will change in the years to come as the HSA foundation gets to work.


----------



## MrJava

from amd supplied gcc "machine descriptor" file.
Quote:


> ;; AMD bdver3 Scheduling
> ;;
> ;; The bdver3 contains three pipelined FP units and two integer units.
> ;; Fetching and decoding logic is different from previous fam15 processors.
> *;; Fetching is done every two cycles rather than every cycle and
> ;; two decode units are available. The decode units therefore decode
> ;; four instructions in two cycles.*
> ;;
> ;; Three DirectPath instructions decoders and only one VectorPath decoder
> ;; is available. They can decode three DirectPath instructions or one
> ;; VectorPath instruction per cycle.
> ;;
> ;; The load/store queue unit is not attached to the schedulers but
> ;; communicates with all the execution units separately instead.
> ;;
> ;; bdver3 belong to fam15 processors. We use the same insn attribute
> ;; that was used for bdver3 decoding scheme.


I've previously heard that bulldozer didn't just alternate between cores so it could potentially do A/A/B/A/A/B/B ... and so. Maybe this setup guarantees 4 instructions per core every other cycle. Since x86 processors rarely even execute more than 2 ipc this is a good idea. Also consider that running the decoders every cycle could greatly increase power consumption.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Each integer core has its own decoder with Steamroller. Which means all integer related tasks should be a lot faster. Tho the FPU is still shared so floats are still going to be quite slow. The addition of the extra decoder should increase the operations handled per cycle greatly. As the single decoder with Bulldozer has to dig through the register and offload the instructions one at a time to each core. There is no sequence with Steamroller, as each core has its own decoder. Steamroller is close to being a true quad core again. The only thing notably different now is the shared memory and FPU.
> 
> Edit: Here's a basic diagram for comparison between the two.


How many games use 256-bit AVX code. The shared FPU is more than enough for two threads for the foreseeable future.
FPU itself is bottlenecked by that fact that it can only do one 128 bit store per cycle. The FPU can compute two 128-bit FP ops per cycle with fully loaded pipes, however it can only write back 1 128 bit op result per cycle. With two threads, this is 0.5 128 bit stores per thread per cycle - not good.

In steamroller this is doubled (2 128 bit stores per cycle) so throughput can be higher in many cases.


----------



## MrJava

Biggest bulldozer performance penalty, low L1 write speed and low L2 bandwidth:



Steamroller slides say in no uncertain terms: "Major improvements in store handling"
What this could mean:
- more/larger write combining buffers
- larger, more associative write coalescing cache
- change L1 data and L2 to write back design (unlikely)
- L2 has four ports instead of two (two per core)


----------



## Seronx

Bulldozer:
The fetch, pick, and decodes alternatives between core A/0 and core B/1.(Fine-grained)
The floating point alternates between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(Hyperthreading)

Steamroller:
The fetch, pick, and decode does both cores every other clock.(CMPish)
The floating point doesn't alternate between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(True SMT?)

--
Bulldozer:
1 fetch, 1 pick, 2 double decodes

Steamroller:
2 fetch, 1 pick, 4 double decodes


----------



## EniGma1987

Im just trying to wrap my head around why AMD would move from running fetching and decoding every cycle, to only fetching every other. To me it just seems like it would be a step back in performance. And if you are now fetching only half as often, what point is there in doubling the decode units in the first place?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Bulldozer:
> The fetch, pick, and decodes alternatives between core A/0 and core B/1.(Fine-grained)
> The floating point alternates between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(Hyperthreading)
> 
> Steamroller:
> The fetch, pick, and decode does both cores every other clock.(CMPish)
> The floating point doesn't alternate between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(True SMT?)
> 
> --
> Bulldozer:
> 1 fetch, 1 pick, 2 double decodes
> 
> Steamroller:
> 2 fetch, 1 pick, 4 double decodes


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Im just trying to wrap my head around why AMD would move from running fetching and decoding every cycle, to only fetching every other. To me it just seems like it would be a step back in performance. And if you are now fetching only half as often, what point is there in doubling the decode units in the first place?


The number of decoded instructions per thread per clock cycle is the same as before - no worse. The latency is lower though (2 cycles to decode 8 instructions vs. 1 cycle to decode 8 instructions).
Like I said before though, I'm more concerned about the L1 write bandwidth and L2 bandwidth than any other issue in the core.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Bulldozer:
> The fetch, pick, and decodes alternatives between core A/0 and core B/1.(Fine-grained)
> The *floating point alternates* between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(Hyperthreading)
> 
> Steamroller:
> The fetch, pick, and decode does both cores every other clock.(CMPish)
> The *floating point doesn't alternate* between cores per clock(front-end) and alternates when stalls happen(execution-end).(True SMT?)
> 
> --
> Bulldozer:
> *1 fetch*, 1 pick, 2 double decodes
> 
> Steamroller:
> *2 fetch*, 1 pick, 4 double decodes


in bold important parts








still I have to agree that seems like a slight step backwards hopefully it isn't.
since the two decoders really need to be feed much better then a single and a module having only one fetch would still limit it's speed.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> in bold important parts
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> still I have to agree that seems like a slight step backwards hopefully it isn't.
> since the two decoders really need to be feed much better then a single and a module having only one fetch would still limit it's speed.


For whatever its worth.

http://s1056.photobucket.com/user/H...2-08-2820at204_38_0920PM_zpsd25fc130.png.html


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jesh462*
> 
> The rumors for years have been that Steamroller will not come to AM3+, so I don't know why that would change all of a sudden. Heck, there isn't even an Opteron Steamroller part being released without the GPU for them to base an FX chip on. If you ask me, every single sign points to Steamroller being 1-2 module on AM2+.
> The whole point of the APU was to make HSA a reality, and Kaveri will do that. (even if all the software is not up to showing it off yet)
> You may just end up being better off with an AM2+ board even as an enthusiast.
> 
> Or going blue. Either way.
> I have a feeling that will change in the years to come as the HSA foundation gets to work.


You meant FM2+ not AM2+. Some dying brain cells?


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ghost12*
> 
> Any confirmed news for this release yet? I will be building new in October and may have to go blue from my current 8320.


Rumor mill says sometime in February 2014 at the absolute earliest. A 8320 build will likely be faster for modern gaming than any Steamroller CPU. Unless you play a game that is largely effected by single core performance. Though that's just an educated guess since we don't have any benchmarks as of yet.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> Rumor mill says sometime in February 2014 at the absolute earliest.


I heard Kaveri availability will be much later than expected. Kaveri Mobile being around in April 2014 and Kaveri Desktop being around in June 2014.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I heard Kaveri availability will be much later than expected. Kaveri Mobile being around in April 2014 and Kaveri Desktop being around in June 2014.


Didnt AMD recently say that Kaveri will be launched and shipping in December 2013? Doesnt mean retail availability in December, but it shouldnt take months from when it starts shipping to get into stores I dont think.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I heard Kaveri availability will be much later than expected. Kaveri Mobile being around in April 2014 and Kaveri Desktop being around in June 2014.


I talked with Peter Amos and he told me Kaveri will ship and be on store shelves in early 2014. Not sure if that's the entire segment (mobile, desktop, etc) tho I imagine they shouldn't be far apart. Seeing as how FM2+ desktop boards are already being mass produced right now. I think we will see FM2+ boards on the market before the end of the year. Especially considering existing APU's drop right into these new boards. People can go out and buy a cheap dual core Richland chip to hold them off until Kaveri is stocked. Existing owners can buy the board a head of time, and continue to run their existing APU. At least that's what I hope happens.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I heard Kaveri availability will be much later than expected. Kaveri Mobile being around in April 2014 and Kaveri Desktop being around in June 2014.


I don't remember reading that specifically but those dates seem reasonable. The official "shipping date" of Richland and retail release lagged by about that amount of time.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> Rumor mill says sometime in February 2014 at the absolute earliest. A 8320 build will likely be faster for modern gaming than any Steamroller CPU. Unless you play a game that is largely effected by single core performance. Though that's just an educated guess since we don't have any benchmarks as of yet.


"At the absolute earliest" The way you word this implies there will be further delay. That is highly unlikely at this stage of the game. It will be generally available by mid February. It should be available at better prices by the end of March.

a four core steamroller will definitely not stand up to an FX-8350 with 8 cores even with 30% improvement in IPC for multi-threaded applications. If AMD doesn't have its head up its own ass, it will release a 6 and 8 core steamroller later in 2014. If they don't they will get get very poor migration from their enthusiast and power user base.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> "At the absolute earliest" The way you word this implies there will be further delay. That is highly unlikely at this stage of the game. It will be generally available by mid February. It should be available at better prices by the end of March.
> 
> a four core steamroller will definitely not stand up to an FX-8350 with 8 cores even with 30% improvement in IPC for multi-threaded applications. If AMD doesn't have its head up its own ass, it will release a 6 and 8 core steamroller later in 2014. If they don't they will get get very poor migration from their enthusiast and power user base.


Boy are you gonna be angry with AMD for the next year or so.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Boy are you gonna be angry with AMD for the next year or so.


you are full of assumptions arent you


----------



## nz3777

So i just bought the 8350 and iam curious whats gonna be the main diffrence between the 8350 and steamroller?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> you are full of assumptions arent you


Educated guesses?

If a 6 - 8 core steamroller were available next year for desktop then server versions would've shown up on the server roadmap. Why?
- Servers like more hardware threads
- memory controller and caches need little to no modification to support ECC
- Same dies at higher prices = higher margins


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nz3777*
> 
> So i just bought the 8350 and iam curious whats gonna be the main diffrence between the 8350 and steamroller?


the equivalent difference between bd and pd... lol
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/135105-amd-details-steamroller-cpu-architecture-a-refined-piledriver-with-a-dynamic-l2-cache


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Educated guesses?
> 
> If a 6 - 8 core steamroller were available next year for desktop then server versions would've shown up on the server roadmap. Why?
> - Servers like more hardware threads
> - memory controller and caches need little to no modification to support ECC
> - Same dies at higher prices = higher margins


that is an assumption not an educated guess


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> that is an assumption not an educated guess


OK, what's wrong my logic then?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> "At the absolute earliest" The way you word this implies there will be further delay. That is highly unlikely at this stage of the game. It will be generally available by mid February. It should be available at better prices by the end of March.
> 
> a four core steamroller will definitely not stand up to an FX-8350 with 8 cores even with 30% improvement in IPC for multi-threaded applications. If AMD doesn't have its head up its own ass, it will release a 6 and 8 core steamroller later in 2014. If they don't they will get get very poor migration from their enthusiast and power user base.


Power users and enthusiasts is intel's game (for now). AMD has a great thing going in the budget segment and kaveri should complete well with the locked i3's and i5's.

The FX 8320 will probably get some price drops next year and become very attractive as well since the price of an unlocked i5 never seems to move.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> OK, what's wrong my logic then?


That is based off of that 1 they must follow that path 2 that maybe they did are waiting for the roadmap to be released later this year to fully disclose 3 that 90% of what you say is speculation that you infer to be fact..

Logically it still does not make sense as the opteron line would be 10 to 12 core as the server environment thrives with multicore. Although same mArch doesnt meant that they are that closely related.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> the equivalent difference between bd and pd... lol
> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/135105-amd-details-steamroller-cpu-architecture-a-refined-piledriver-with-a-dynamic-l2-cache


If intel can call nehalem and sandy bridge different micro-architectures, then bulldozer/piledriver vs. steamroller is the same deal. Almost everything in the module has been improved or redesigned it seems.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Power users and enthusiasts is intel's game (for now). AMD has a great thing going in the budget segment and kaveri should complete well with the locked i3's and i5's.
> 
> The FX 8320 will probably get some price drops next year and become very attractive as well since the price of an unlocked i5 never seems to move.


that is also an assumption. I know that when I use mutlithreaded applications aka like encoding video my chip performs better than an i7


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If intel can call nehalem and sandy bridge different micro-architectures, then bulldozer/piledriver vs. steamroller is the same deal. Almost everything in the module has been improved or redesigned it seems.


thats not what I was saying.. I was saying there are enough differences between desktop and server that they do not have to be linked.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> That is based off of that 1 they must follow that path 2 that maybe they did are waiting for the roadmap to be released later this year to fully disclose 3 that 90% of what you say is speculation that you infer to be fact..
> 
> Logically it still does not make sense as the opteron line would be 10 to 12 core as the server environment thrives with multicore. Although same mArch doesnt meant that they are that closely related.


I'll admit that AMD changes roadmaps approximately every few months but right now they are positioning a 4-core kaveri for web hosting and piledriver based opterons for all of next year. If what you're all saying hoping is true, then that whole roadmap will change within the next few months. I don't buy that for a second.

All opterons are based on one die which is exactly the same as the die all desktop FX's are based on.
Hence, steamroller FX next year <===> 4 - 16 steamroller opterons next year


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Educated guesses?
> 
> If a 6 - 8 core steamroller were available next year for desktop then server versions would've shown up on the server roadmap. Why?
> - Servers like more hardware threads
> - memory controller and caches need little to no modification to support ECC
> - Same dies at higher prices = higher margins


Yep, he's got it nailed. AMD has been making a lot of money in the server market thanks to their purchase of SeaMicro. I have said it before and I will say it again, the FX series is a lost cause and a money pit. AMD's best move is to follow the trend of mobile devices and servers, before Intel muscles them out of that race to. Let's face it, desktop users are a dying breed, and mobile devices are on the rise, which means there will be a massive increase in need for servers, if there isn't a Steamroller on the map for servers, then most likely there will not be an FX line anymore. I like the APU better anyway, not only does it require less power, it also has a much better versatility compared to what Intel is offering in the same price range, and with the rise of the next gen consoles, I think the APU's will be the best suited and optimized to play the next gen games. This 'more cores'(in regards to desktop components) philosophy needs to stop, if AMD wants to reach the mass market.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> that is also an assumption. I know that when I use mutlithreaded applications aka like encoding video my chip performs better than an i7


Where is your proof, that your chip performs better than my i7? Show me, because I have used both chips and the i7 is far superior when compared to the 8350 at any task. I do not intend on turning this into an AMD vs. Intel thread, and I really look forward to seeing them succeed, but really? Have you used both chips? Or is this just an assumption on some secondary source of information?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> thats not what I was saying.. I was saying there are enough differences between desktop and server that they do not have to be linked.


With some minor changes (firmware?) an 8 core vishera becomes an 8 core seoul opteron.
Anything above 8 cores is just an mcm with the same die and some more hypertransport links enabled (that are disabled otherwise).


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'll admit that AMD changes roadmaps approximately every few months but right now they are positioning a 4-core kaveri for web hosting and piledriver based opterons for all of next year. If what you're all saying hoping is true, then that whole roadmap will change within the next few months. I don't buy that for a second.
> 
> All opterons are based on one die which is exactly the same as the die all desktop FX's are based on.
> Hence, steamroller FX next year <===> 4 - 16 steamroller opterons next year


Fx 8 core is not the same die as opteron 10 core... ssame mArch same node.. not same die


----------



## Seronx

"Berlin" as a server part is [email protected]:
Caching Databases
Transcoding/Streaming
Cloud Gaming
Virtualized Desktops

"Warsaw" as a server part is [email protected]:
Data Analytics
Web Hosting
High Performance Computing


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yep, he's got it nailed. AMD has been making a lot of money in the server market thanks to their purchase of SeaMicro. I have said it before and I will say it again, the FX series is a lost cause and a money pit. AMD's best move is to follow the trend of mobile devices and servers, before Intel muscles them out of that race to. Let's face it, desktop users are a dying breed, and mobile devices are on the rise, which means there will be a massive increase in need for servers, if there isn't a Steamroller on the map for servers, then most likely there will not be an FX line anymore. I like the APU better anyway, not only does it require less power, it also has a much better versatility compared to what Intel is offering in the same price range, and with the rise of the next gen consoles, I think the APU's will be the best suited and optimized to play the next gen games. This 'more cores'(in regards to desktop components) philosophy needs to stop, if AMD wants to reach the mass market.


for what you are saying.. it would make sense to do that the generation after steamroller.. why you may ask? They still make a good chunk of change on fx and the apu even though kavari will be better.. still are not on par with the computing needs.. kavari will be slightly slower than the 8350 and that is also giving the fact that people code programs to it.. everything that you state is a risk that would become suicide.. stock would plummet to below 1 dollar.. the apu is strong but not strong enough yet


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> "Berlin" as a server part is [email protected]:
> Caching Databases
> Transcoding/Streaming
> Cloud Gaming
> Virtualized Desktops
> 
> "Warsaw" as a server part is [email protected]:
> Data Analytics
> Web Hosting
> High Performance Computing


Seronx, can you back me up on my assertion that vishera and seoul (8-core opteron) use the same die. I am too lazy to find proof of this.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> - memory controller and caches need little to no modification to support ECC


I thought The AM3+ versions already supported ECC because their server version did? Maybe that changed since I havent looked at that area of the bios in a long time, but I remember all old families of AMD processors had ECC support on the desktop.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> for what you are saying.. it would make sense to do that the generation after steamroller.. why you may ask? They still make a good chunk of change on fx and the apu even though kavari will be better.. still are not on par with the computing needs.. kavari will be slightly slower than the 8350 and that is also giving the fact that people code programs to it.. everything that you state is a risk that would become suicide.. stock would plummet to below 1 dollar.. the apu is strong but not strong enough yet


Kaveri should be strong enough to combat locked i3's and i5's (CPU perf and definitely GPU perf) giving AMD a pretty good sized addressable market.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I thought The AM3+ versions already supported ECC because their server version did? Maybe that changed since I havent looked at that area of the bios in a long time, but I remember all old families of AMD processors had ECC support on the desktop.


I guess that would fall in the category of no modification needed then.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Seronx, can you back me up on my assertion that vishera and seoul (8-core opteron) use the same die. I am too lazy to find proof of this.


All Bulldozer and Piledriver dies that have 4 modules/8 cores are the same die currently.

Zambezi / Vishera / Zurich / Delhi / Valencia / Seoul / *Interlagos* / *Abu Dhabi*
All use the same die.
Bold uses two dies.
Underlined uses stepping C of the die.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> "At the absolute earliest" The way you word this implies there will be further delay. That is highly unlikely at this stage of the game. It will be generally available by mid February. It should be available at better prices by the end of March.
> 
> a four core steamroller will definitely not stand up to an FX-8350 with 8 cores even with 30% improvement in IPC for multi-threaded applications. If AMD doesn't have its head up its own ass, it will release a 6 and 8 core steamroller later in 2014. If they don't they will get get very poor migration from their enthusiast and power user base.


The Feb '13 date is from VR-Zone's report from its claimed leaked documents. AMD PR later commented that manufacturing was scheduled for Dec '13. That's awfully a tight window to have it on the retail shelves 2 months later. I believe OEM computer makers get the first shipments too.

A much shorter turnaround than Richland had anyway, where it started shipping in Jan '13 and only hit the retail shelves in Jun '13. We'll see I guess.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yep, he's got it nailed. AMD has been making a lot of money in the server market thanks to their purchase of SeaMicro. I have said it before and I will say it again, the FX series is a lost cause and a money pit. AMD's best move is to follow the trend of mobile devices and servers, before Intel muscles them out of that race to. Let's face it, desktop users are a dying breed, and mobile devices are on the rise, which means there will be a massive increase in need for servers, if there isn't a Steamroller on the map for servers, then most likely there will not be an FX line anymore. I like the APU better anyway, not only does it require less power, it also has a much better versatility compared to what Intel is offering in the same price range, and with the rise of the next gen consoles, I think the APU's will be the best suited and optimized to play the next gen games. This 'more cores'(in regards to desktop components) philosophy needs to stop, if AMD wants to reach the mass market.
> Where is your proof, that your chip performs better than my i7? Show me, because I have used both chips and the i7 is far superior when compared to the 8350 at any task. I do not intend on turning this into an AMD vs. Intel thread, and I really look forward to seeing them succeed, but really? Have you used both chips? Or is this just an assumption on some secondary source of information?


You are assuming once more. I never said that a six or 8 core steamroller had to be an FX AM3+ socket. An FM2+ socket will be fine. But if AMD wants me to sacrifice multi-threading power for an improvement in single core performance they are jackasses. What advantage does that pose for me? Zero. Why would you care to support that move? And you have been advocating for it. If there is no 6 or 8 core steamroller or at least excavator, I will kiss them goodbye in another year. I have no interest in downgrading overall performance with a 4 core product. Even if excavator is 25% faster in IPC than steamroller it will still be underpowered in multi-threading compared to an FX-8350. Totally unacceptable


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> for what you are saying.. it would make sense to do that the generation after steamroller.. why you may ask? They still make a good chunk of change on fx and the apu even though kavari will be better.. still are not on par with the computing needs.. kavari will be slightly slower than the 8350 and that is also giving the fact that people code programs to it.. everything that you state is a risk that would become suicide.. stock would plummet to below 1 dollar.. the apu is strong but not strong enough yet


How would it be financial suicide? There is an immense amount of money to be made in the mobile and server market compared to the desktop. Don't believe me look at spending trends of western demographics or if you don't feel like doing a bunch of research just look around you when you are outside and try to spot somebody with out some sort of mobile device. Bulldozer=Fail, Piledriver=Fail, How would investing more money into something that is failing bring about financial stability?

Perhaps you are correct, that they may pursue the FX through steamroller, but that is just speculation, and the only reason why the APU isn't already the mainstream desktop chip and the FX remains AMD's 'enthusiast' chips, is because people like you underestimate it.

The core architecture is the same, therefore it will perform the same as a 8350 in single threaded applications. 8 cores has no place in gaming and that is the point I was trying to make. You want your PC to crunch numbers or game(3-5Monitors 3-4GPUs), Intel is for you, you want to game(single monitor) AMD is for you, you want a server chip(IMO) AMD is right for you, it's all about the individuals needs, and I don't really see the FX series filling any gap that the APU can't.

Just to clarify, I am aware I am not stating any facts right now, other than that FX series has been one of AMD's most costly endeavors, and this is all just my opinion and speculation, but if I'm in AMD's shoes, I am not continuing the FX line and I would have told my customers what to expect a long time ago.

To be honest, it is not their products that is what turned me off from AMD, but their terrible management and organization skills, I was just sick of wondering when to upgrade and because of their flip-flop business model I have spent money at the wrong time many times before.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> You want your PC to crunch numbers or game(3-5Monitors 3-4GPUs), Intel is for you...


This is for LGA 2011 right? No quad-core with hyperthreading on LGA 115x beats the number crunching power and pure bandwidth of SR5690/FX-8350.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> But if AMD wants me to sacrifice multi-threading power for an improvement in single core performance they are jackasses. What advantage does that pose for me? Zero.


More single threaded performance and less cores equals better parallelization.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You are assuming once more. I never said that a six or 8 core steamroller had to be an FX AM3+ socket. An FM2+ socket will be fine. But if AMD wants me to sacrifice multi-threading power for an improvement in single core performance they are jackasses. What advantage does that pose for me? Zero. Why would you care to support that move? And you have been advocating for it. If there is no 6 or 8 core steamroller or at least excavator, I will kiss them goodbye in another year. I have no interest in downgrading overall performance with a 4 core product. Even if excavator is 25% faster in IPC than steamroller it will still be underpowered in multi-threading compared to an FX-8350. Totally unacceptable


You'd switch to intel if amd doesn't deliver a 6-8 core steamroller next year?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> You'd switch to intel if amd doesn't deliver a 6-8 core steamroller next year?


No, if the roadmap does not indicate a 6 or 8 core Excavator as part of future plans, I will at that point move on. I am not a budget cpu user. I am mid tier as far as money and upper mid-tier as far as performance. I expect a cpu that will compete with lower end I7 in performance. If that is not part of the AMD plans why would I make it mine?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> How would it be financial suicide? There is an immense amount of money to be made in the mobile and server market compared to the desktop. Don't believe me look at spending trends of western demographics or if you don't feel like doing a bunch of research just look around you when you are outside and try to spot somebody with out some sort of mobile device. Bulldozer=Fail, Piledriver=Fail, How would investing more money into something that is failing bring about financial stability?
> 
> Perhaps you are correct, that they may pursue the FX through steamroller, but that is just speculation, and the only reason why the APU isn't already the mainstream desktop chip and the FX remains AMD's 'enthusiast' chips, is because people like you underestimate it.
> 
> The core architecture is the same, therefore it will perform the same as a 8350 in single threaded applications. 8 cores has no place in gaming and that is the point I was trying to make. You want your PC to crunch numbers or game(3-5Monitors 3-4GPUs), Intel is for you, you want to game(single monitor) AMD is for you, you want a server chip(IMO) AMD is right for you, it's all about the individuals needs, and I don't really see the FX series filling any gap that the APU can't.
> 
> Just to clarify, I am aware I am not stating any facts right now, other than that FX series has been one of AMD's most costly endeavors, and this is all just my opinion and speculation, but if I'm in AMD's shoes, I am not continuing the FX line and I would have told my customers what to expect a long time ago.
> 
> To be honest, it is not their products that is what turned me off from AMD, but their terrible management and organization skills, I was just sick of wondering when to upgrade and because of their flip-flop business model I have spent money at the wrong time many times before.


Its not that I underestimate it. I am happy that they are going that direction, What I am saying is that it is not there yet. and they would be dropping a big market to go just APU unless the performance is there.

To put it simply if Kavari came out and performed better than an 8350 by 10% I would be looking at getting an APU however as it sits Richland is a good ways behind the FX series and it would be an insane leap. I would hope that leap happens but I am being realistic


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> This is for LGA 2011 right? No quad-core with hyperthreading on LGA 115x beats the number crunching power and pure bandwidth of SR5690/FX-8350.
> More single threaded performance and less cores equals better parallelization.


Big deal. It doesn't mean better multi-thread performance than the FX-8350. Tell me 4 core Excavator will better multithreading than FX-8350 right now. Maybe it will be close, but that is no reason to downgrade to it. Give me a 6 core excavator with HSA and I'll give it a go. I am not a beggar. I am not on the dole from AMD. I will wait for the roadmap and hope I can laugh at you. If not you can go with parallelism with restricted performance and I will go for parallelism with better performance. If you think Intel won't come aboard the HSA bandwagon if it shows signs of success you are mistaken.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Big deal. It doesn't mean better multi-thread performance than the FX-8350. Tell me 4 core Excavator will better multithreas than FX-8350 right now. Maybe it will be close, but that is no reason to downgrade to it. Give me a 6 core excavator with HSA and I'll give it a go. I am not a beggar. I am not on the dole from AMD. I will wait for the roadmap and hope I can laugh at you. If not you can go with parallelism with restricted performance and I will go for parallelism with better performance. If you think Intel won't come aboard the HSA bandwagon if it shows signs of success you are mistaken.


Actually the A10-7800k will triumph every desktop processor on the market. Cores mean jack crap in the real world. Serial processing is old technology and extremely slow. With HSA and hUMA support, the computer world is opening up to a whole new standard of software development. I am willing to bet you $1000 that once the A10-7800k comes out, it will beat your FX-8350 twofold in heavy threaded tests. Graphics cores can run hundreds of instructions per cycle compared to serial processors that can only run one instruction per cycle. GPU cores are also ten times faster at doing so as well. So I don't know where you're going with the whole "no eight core FX's will ruin AMD" bit. Because I rather have a quad core that can max every game available today (my current A10-6800k can already do that) and be able to crunch numbers like no tomorrow thanks to its co-processor. And who cares if Intel comes aboard, that is if the founders of HSA (AMD) even lets them. If they did it wouldn't be anything special, as Intel's graphics architecture is horrible. AMD would still claim the performance crown even if both Intel and AMD shared the same style HSA architecture. The purchase of ATI was the smartest thing AMD has ever done in the running of their company.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> No, if the roadmap does not indicate a 6 or 8 core Excavator as part of future plans, I will at that point move on. I am not a budget cpu user. I am mid tier as far as money and upper mid-tier as far as performance. I expect a cpu that will compete with lower end I7 in performance. If that is not part of the AMD plans why would I make it mine?


Anything is a wild guess when talking about 2015 products, but i think its probably realistic to expect high core count APUs/CPUs in that time frame.

Btw, single threaded performance is still very,very important and will be for the foreseeable future. I'd still expect a 4-core steamroller to be a huge improvement in most applications.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> How would it be financial suicide? There is an immense amount of money to be made in the mobile and server market compared to the desktop. Don't believe me look at spending trends of western demographics or if you don't feel like doing a bunch of research just look around you when you are outside and try to spot somebody with out some sort of mobile device. Bulldozer=Fail, Piledriver=Fail, How would investing more money into something that is failing bring about financial stability?


I am assuming that by fail you mean because of the high power consumption, since mobile device are the future and for mobile we need to get more efficient? Current AMD FX series processors are very energy efficient when clocked lower and with less voltage. Drop then down to 1.8~ GHz and about 1v and their idle draw is only a few watts. Load draw is somewhere between 10-20 watts. That is pretty good for how power hungry they are when clocked higher. Steamroller with 28nm and proper resonant clock mesh integration will bring even better power efficiency. It may be a "fail" because of lowish single thread performance and high power draw in desktop configuration, but with little work these could be turned into a monster of a high core count mobile processor. Not for phone still, but possibly tablets and definitely laptops.

Opcode, an APU will only win in threaded apps once HSA starts being used in the majority of apps. That wont happen for at least a few years, so it will still suck in highly threaded situations when compared to a high clocked 8 core. By the time HSA is used in everything, the "A10-7800K" will be old and slow so it still wont matter. This "APU future" that people want is only relevant once pretty much all software actually makes use of those features. Look at how things are now days. Now think back, dont you remember when the big news was that CUDA was the future and everything will run on a GPU, and Nvidia is the only way to go for anything in the future because you need CUDA? Look where we are, no one cares. It has taken us years to get to the point where people are actually seriously considering using GPU cores to give better performance, despite it being pushed so hard for years now.


----------



## Seronx

An engineering sample for Kaveri 35W has the clock rate of:
1.8 GHz for max stock and 2.3 GHz for max boost. GPU is at 500 MHz at max clock.

Trinity/Richland 35W has the clcok rate of:
2.3/2.5 GHz for max stock and 3.2/3.5 GHz for max boost. GPU is at 685/720 MHz at max clock.

*Kaveri*
512 * 2 * 0.5 => *512* SP GFlops

*Trinity/Richland*
384 * 2 * 0.685->0.72 => *526.08->552.96* SP GFlops

*Kaveri*
2 Modules * 8 Flops * 1.8 GHz => *28.8* SP GFlops
1 Module * 8 Flops * 2.3 GHz => *18.4* SP GFlops

*Trinity/Richland*
2 Modules * 8 Flops * 2.3->2.5 GHz => *36.8->40* SP GFlops
1 Modules * 8 Flops * 3.2->3.5 GHz => *25.6->28* SP GFlops

If you think the HotChips slides are still relevant to the Steamroller we are receiving. Then, you are getting a part that is practically 1.7x slower than Trinity/Richland on the CPU side. On the GPU side you get the same performance while probably getting better DP performance since GCN is half rate for DP.

On the whole DP issue Trinity's and Richland's GPU isn't IEEE Compliant for FP64.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> An engineering sample for Kaveri 35W has the clock rate of:
> 1.8 GHz for max stock and 2.3 GHz for max boost. GPU is at 500 MHz at max clock.
> 
> Trinity/Richland 35W has the clcok rate of:
> 2.3/2.5 GHz for max stock and 3.2/3.5 GHz for max boost. GPU is at 685/720 MHz at max clock.
> 
> *Kaveri*
> 512 * 2 * 0.5 => *512* SP GFlops
> 
> *Trinity/Richland*
> 384 * 2 * 0.685->0.72 => *526.08->552.96* SP GFlops
> 
> *Kaveri*
> 2 Modules * 8 Flops * 1.8 GHz => *28.8* SP GFlops
> 1 Module * 8 Flops * 2.3 GHz => *18.4* SP GFlops
> 
> *Trinity/Richland*
> 2 Modules * 8 Flops * 2.3->2.5 GHz => *36.8->40* SP GFlops
> 1 Modules * 8 Flops * 3.2->3.5 GHz => *25.6->28* SP GFlops
> 
> If you think the HotChips slides are still relevant to the Steamroller we are receiving. Then, you are getting a part that is practically 1.7x slower than Trinity/Richland on the CPU side. On the GPU side you get the same performance while probably getting better DP performance since GCN is half rate for DP.
> 
> On the whole DP issue Trinity's and Richland's GPU isn't IEEE Compliant for FP64.


To be taken with a grain of salt.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Actually the A10-7800k will triumph every desktop processor on the market. Cores mean jack crap in the real world. Serial processing is old technology and extremely slow. With HSA and hUMA support, the computer world is opening up to a whole new standard of software development. I am willing to bet you $1000 that once the A10-7800k comes out, it will beat your FX-8350 twofold in heavy threaded tests. Graphics cores can run hundreds of instructions per cycle compared to serial processors that can only run one instruction per cycle. GPU cores are also ten times faster at doing so as well. So I don't know where you're going with the whole "no eight core FX's will ruin AMD" bit. Because I rather have a quad core that can max every game available today (my current A10-6800k can already do that) and be able to crunch numbers like no tomorrow thanks to its co-processor. And who cares if Intel comes aboard, that is if the founders of HSA (AMD) even lets them. If they did it wouldn't be anything special, as Intel's graphics architecture is horrible. AMD would still claim the performance crown even if both Intel and AMD shared the same style HSA architecture. The purchase of ATI was the smartest thing AMD has ever done in the running of their company.


It will be 2 to 3 years before we see plentiful HSA applications. Until then 4 core steamroller will be limping along. Most of my applications are not games, but are multithreaded. So I am supposed to upgrade to a white elephant that will morph into a cheetah in 3 years? Not likely.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> It will be 2 to 3 years before we see plentiful HSA applications. Until then 4 core steamroller will be limping along. Most of my applications are not games, but are multithreaded. So I am supposed to upgrade to a white elephant that will morph into a cheetah in 3 years? Not likely.


Two to three years? I don't think so. HSA was made with the purpose in mind of making it extremely easy for developers to utilize it. With HSA you don't even need to thread your software. You can utilize the CPU and the GPU for carrying out tasks on a single main thread. Programming accelerated software has become that easy, and that was AMD's whole purpose with HSA. OpenCL was and still is extremely complex to use, AMD got a clear feel for that considering the low percentage of OpenCL adoption. Tho that should change with HSA as developers don't need to do any major reconstruction of their code. They just need to add in a check at the start of the application to make sure the system is HSA compliant. Then write the new HSA optimized functions that would take place instead of the traditional x86 code. So when the application loads, if you don't run a Kaveri chip it will just default to using your serial processor like it did before. Tho if you do run Kaveri than it will use the new optimized functions to accelerate things up to 500%. HSA will be extremely easy to adopt as it will be distributed as an extension for C++ and others. As a matter of fact, Kaveri isn't even out yet and LibreOffice is supposedly in the process of being HSA compliant. I guess the developers got into contact with AMD and worked out a deal to make that happen. It wont take long and all of your mainstream applications such as Photoshop, Gimp, VLC, and others will make use of HSA. And even your thread heavy applications like ConvertXToDVD will make use of it. I'm also laying my cards down, and guessing you will see a [email protected] client optimized for Kaveri in the near future as well. There's so many applications that can make use of it, tho not every application will. I mean lets face it HSA isn't going to make CCleaner any faster. That's mine and pretty much AMD's perspective on things. I personally don't see how its going to take years to update existing software.


----------



## roofrider

Has Adobe, Sony or anyone else (apart from LibreOffice) confirmed or at least given out any information regarding the HSA compliancy of their future products?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> To be taken with a grain of salt.


Steamroller should have higher L1 bandwidth and the FPU can do 2 128 bit stores per cycle, so performance in real code would be higher than trinity/richland.
I'm hoping that's one of the lower clocked 35W parts.


----------



## Konbad

i sure hope they don't ditch the FX line.. im only running an i7 system right now because i won the CPU and Mobo in a competition, do you think its at all plausible that AMD might be taking a Stepped approach ie releasing Steamroller APU then q3/4 next year releasing excavator FX , basically skipping Steamroller entirely for the FX line?


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> This is for LGA 2011 right? No quad-core with hyperthreading on LGA 115x beats the number crunching power and pure bandwidth of SR5690/FX-8350.
> More single threaded performance and less cores equals better parallelization.


Yes mainly LG A 2011. I do not see a point in going anything under an i7 if you are going Intel, the AMD CPU's can offer basically the same frame rate for a much better price.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I am assuming that by fail you mean because of the high power consumption, since mobile device are the future and for mobile we need to get more efficient? Current AMD FX series processors are very energy efficient when clocked lower and with less voltage. Drop then down to 1.8~ GHz and about 1v and their idle draw is only a few watts. Load draw is somewhere between 10-20 watts. That is pretty good for how power hungry they are when clocked higher. Steamroller with 28nm and proper resonant clock mesh integration will bring even better power efficiency. It may be a "fail" because of lowish single thread performance and high power draw in desktop configuration, but with little work these could be turned into a monster of a high core count mobile processor. Not for phone still, but possibly tablets and definitely laptops.


That is part of it, but the biggest reason it was a fail was the sales, and how many AMD users switched over to Intel due to the Bullldozer fiasco.

Not to mention this whole 'more cores is better' needs to stop, AMD will do much better having a strong single thread power quad core then having 8 weak cores in the consumer market.

And why drop the clock on a desktop CPU, AMD already has CPU's designed for mobile phones and tablets, and they are beating Intel in everything besides power draw and Intel only has a 3W lead on them.

AMD is going in the right direction, but they need to drop FX, they already have all the major markets covered with their other lines, and I personally will be getting a Kaveri when it comes out, to show my support of their, for once, smart business decision.


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Actually the A10-7800k will triumph every desktop processor on the market. Cores mean jack crap in the real world. Serial processing is old technology and extremely slow. With HSA and hUMA support, the computer world is opening up to a whole new standard of software development. I am willing to bet you $1000 that once the A10-7800k comes out, it will beat your FX-8350 twofold in heavy threaded tests. Graphics cores can run hundreds of instructions per cycle compared to serial processors that can only run one instruction per cycle. GPU cores are also ten times faster at doing so as well. So I don't know where you're going with the whole "no eight core FX's will ruin AMD" bit. Because I rather have a quad core that can max every game available today (my current A10-6800k can already do that) and be able to crunch numbers like no tomorrow thanks to its co-processor. And who cares if Intel comes aboard, that is if the founders of HSA (AMD) even lets them. If they did it wouldn't be anything special, as Intel's graphics architecture is horrible. AMD would still claim the performance crown even if both Intel and AMD shared the same style HSA architecture. The purchase of ATI was the smartest thing AMD has ever done in the running of their company.


Wow, how many things are wrong with that wall of tekst of yours?

The purchase of ATI was the second dumbest thing that AMD ever did in their corporate history. When AMD bought ATI just over seven years ago for $5.4B, they had to write down *over half* of that purchase's value within two years. To date, they have yet to see enough profits from that transaction to break even. (In case you're wondering what their dumbest decision ever was, it was the bone-headed move to underfund their fab operations and eventually sell them to GlobalFoundries under the onerous terms of an unachievable Wafer Supply Agreement.)

Also, you're making a _massive_ assumption that the software industry will actually follow the pattern that favor AMD's hardware changes. Remember when AMD decided that their multi-core modules were the way to go (to the extreme detriment of single-core performance) because they predicted that everything would be heavily-multithreaded in the future? Yeah, that really didn't happen and their sales suffered for it big-time. In the same way HSA and hUMA have been vaporware _for years_, and outside of sporadic support from individual developers that's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Simply put: why would anyone code for a company with a 14% marketshare in the x86 market to begin with?

Edited: Farih


----------



## MrJava

Yes its a fanboy rant but remember:
- Both intel and amd have pretty potent OpenCL co-processors on die in the majority of processors sold
- Both have support for shared pools for memory between CPU and GPU as per OpenCL standards
- HSA is an intermediate language which can have any sort of backend (native GPU assembly to OpenCL)
- AMD has very competitive if not market leading GPU IP which would hard to develop on their own due to ATi acquisition

People who read too much anandtech or tom's hardware believe that "shared resources" are the reason for bulldozer's lacklustre performance. It's not.
Most serious analyses have concluded its due to low i-cache associativity, small d-cache with write through policy and high latency L2 cache. Despite this, the module has high multithreaded scaling for a relatively small die area penalty and those problems mentioned before are definitely fixable.

Keep in mind that a single sandy bridge core shares all resources between two threads when hyperthreading is enabled and doesn't take a huge hit. Why? The caches have high associativity, low latency and a write back policy which AMD ditched for reasons that i don't comprehend.

Edit:
Bulldozer was designed for a 45nm process so many parts of the core were smaller and dumber than they should've been. Piledriver fixed some of these and there were some disproportionately large increases in performance in real world code. I'm pretty bullish on steamroller so we'll see how it does.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> Wow, how many things are wrong with that rant of yours?
> 
> The purchase of ATI was the second dumbest thing that AMD ever did in their corporate history. When AMD bought ATI just over seven years ago for $5.4B, they had to write down *over half* of that purchase's value within two years. To date, they have yet to see enough profits from that transaction to break even. (In case you're wondering what their dumbest decision ever was, it was the bone-headed move to underfund their fab operations and eventually sell them to GlobalFoundries under the onerous terms of an unachievable Wafer Supply Agreement.)
> 
> Also, you're making a _massive_ assumption that the software industry will actually follow the pattern that favor AMD's hardware changes. Remember when AMD decided that their multi-core modules were the way to go (to the extreme detriment of single-core performance) because they predicted that everything would be heavily-multithreaded in the future? Yeah, that really didn't happen and their sales suffered for it big-time. In the same way HSA and hUMA have been vaporware _for years_, and outside of sporadic support from individual developers that's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Simply put: why would anyone code for a company with a 14% marketshare in the x86 market to begin with?
> 
> In short, you've drunk way too much of the AMD Kool-Aid to have any credibility. I could've picked apart your rant further, but I'll show some mercy and leave it at that.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> Wow, how many things are wrong with that rant of yours?
> 
> The purchase of ATI was the second dumbest thing that AMD ever did in their corporate history. When AMD bought ATI just over seven years ago for $5.4B, they had to write down *over half* of that purchase's value within two years. To date, they have yet to see enough profits from that transaction to break even. (In case you're wondering what their dumbest decision ever was, it was the bone-headed move to underfund their fab operations and eventually sell them to GlobalFoundries under the onerous terms of an unachievable Wafer Supply Agreement.)
> 
> Also, you're making a _massive_ assumption that the software industry will actually follow the pattern that favor AMD's hardware changes. Remember when AMD decided that their multi-core modules were the way to go (to the extreme detriment of single-core performance) because they predicted that everything would be heavily-multithreaded in the future? Yeah, that really didn't happen and their sales suffered for it big-time. In the same way HSA and hUMA have been vaporware _for years_, and outside of sporadic support from individual developers that's unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Simply put: why would anyone code for a company with a 14% marketshare in the x86 market to begin with?
> 
> In short, you've drunk way too much of the AMD Kool-Aid to have any credibility. I could've picked apart your rant further, but I'll show some mercy and leave it at that.


Rant? I have a very abrasive vocabulary, so if you think it was rant you're sadly mistaken. Even if the purchase hasn't brought in profit margins yet, it doesn't mean AMD is not on the right path in doing so. Look how well their GCN architecture turned out to be. Also look how popular APU's are becoming. They are being mass produced for next gen consoles, desktops, and the mobile market. If AMD never purchased ATI they wouldn't be providing APU's to all three next gen consoles. So even if AMD hasn't covered their expenses in purchasing ATI yet, it wasn't a bad investment and it will eventually pay off.

The industry will adopt HSA on a larger scale than OpenCL. Why? Because its extremely easy to incorporate into existing software. Or to write entirely new software to from the get go. AMD's modular design has no comparison with the HSA architecture and what it is capable of. You're basically saying because AMD went with a module design that HSA is going to be failure. Software never had to be optimized for the FX series, its the hardware at fault not the software. You can't optimize software for AMD's module design, you can only spawn eight threads and hope each core gets one.

I personally plan on remaking a lot of desktop software that exists among the paid market for free. Why? Because AMD will sponsor me with a machine to do so. And I have no problems coding for an advanced architecture that will put a hurt on traditional serial computing. Now I hope you understand that my reference to the FX-8350 wasn't specific. Software will be capable of exceeding the 4770k in performance as well, all day long. I think you obviously have no clue how the architecture improves performance from a software layer.

Edited: Farih


----------



## Konbad

Im going to say AMD paid to much for Ati that in addition to taking to long to get the companies working in sync has hurt them. The 8 core APU's in the next gen consoles will help them towards the black, with games finally going to be making full use of as many cores are they can n the consoles im just hoping AMD perseveres with the FX line for a Generation or 2.
Like I said I think its Plausible that AMD might be skipping steamroller with the FX. Im not an expert but i am going to assume the problem with steamroller is an issue with the 28nm Fab process and getting sufficient yeilds AMD would have known this and might have very well scrapped Steamroller FX and just started working on excavator because how much later would that really be coming if the reason steamroller is delayed is on a manufacturing level.

Also i might have misunderstood but people were saying the Opteron Die is the same as the AMD FX if thats the Case why would AMD Stop the FX line. if AMD know they are going to sell 100K Opterons this year they would buy 100K Dies for "$500"(50 Mil) They would Then Sell those for $1000(100mil) but if they know they can also sell 100k FX CPU's they order 200K Dies at a Cheaper Price, even if they have to take a loss on the FX CPU's and make the same profit they are basically getting more users for the same money.

BTW Numbers are just Random ones to help me illustrate my point.. take with grain of salt


----------



## Farih

Thread cleaned.

Stay on topic without annoying eachother please


----------



## MrJava

AMD has been going through a major restructuring and probably focused all resources available on finishing kaveri, kabini and temash. Those were complex projects: new cpu cores, new gpu cores and a new process node. Not to mention that various engineers on these projects were either layed off or poached by qualcomm, samsung and others.

The victims in this whole thing would've been the 4 module steamroller CPU; probably on a new socket for integrated PCIe 3.0. Instead they delivered a piledriver based opteron with the improvements from richland.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> Im going to say AMD paid to much for Ati that in addition to taking to long to get the companies working in sync has hurt them. The 8 core APU's in the next gen consoles will help them towards the black, with games finally going to be making full use of as many cores are they can n the consoles im just hoping AMD perseveres with the FX line for a Generation or 2.
> Like I said I think its Plausible that AMD might be skipping steamroller with the FX. Im not an expert but i am going to assume the problem with steamroller is an issue with the 28nm Fab process and getting sufficient yeilds AMD would have known this and might have very well scrapped Steamroller FX and just started working on excavator because how much later would that really be coming if the reason steamroller is delayed is on a manufacturing level.
> 
> Also i might have misunderstood but people were saying the Opteron Die is the same as the AMD FX if thats the Case why would AMD Stop the FX line. if AMD know they are going to sell 100K Opterons this year they would buy 100K Dies for "$500"(50 Mil) They would Then Sell those for $1000(100mil) but if they know they can also sell 100k FX CPU's they order 200K Dies at a Cheaper Price, even if they have to take a loss on the FX CPU's and make the same profit they are basically getting more users for the same money.
> 
> BTW Numbers are just Random ones to help me illustrate my point.. take with grain of salt


----------



## kapulek

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> Has Adobe, Sony or anyone else (apart from LibreOffice) confirmed or at least given out any information regarding the HSA compliancy of their future products?


Not that it was confirmed or anything like that but I think Frostbite 3 game engine will be HSA ready in some way. If AMD shows Kaveri in November I hope they will show it's advantages in BF4 vs non HSA APUs.


----------



## Konbad

so someone like me who has dual 6970's i care why the APU is good? i doubt the APU coming out is going to outperform the i7 930 im currently running in a game that has alot of CPU usage, i mean once they patch it proper support for the ps4 8 cores ill see a gain but i run dedicated video, unless they release a APU that can get 120+ FPS @ 1920x1200 in any game out on the market APU's mean Jack to me


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> Not that it was confirmed or anything like that but I think Frostbite 3 game engine will be HSA ready in some way. If AMD shows Kaveri in November I hope they will show it's advantages in BF4 vs non HSA APUs.


I don't see it being any real advantage for gaming. Unless you are running games at lower resolutions and have considerable free gddr5 memory to assist with cpu chores. The primary advantage is for applications where the graphics memory is not employed at a high level, and the gddr5 memory can act as a huge cache to speed up the HSA enabled application.The main advantage for gaming is the improved single core performance.


----------



## TaraB

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> so someone like me who has dual 6970's i care why the APU is good? i doubt the APU coming out is going to outperform the i7 930 im currently running in a game that has alot of CPU usage, i mean once they patch it proper support for the ps4 8 cores ill see a gain but i run dedicated video, unless they release a APU that can get 120+ FPS @ 1920x1200 in any game out on the market APU's mean Jack to me


The APU in PS4 will use GDDR5 memory for system and video, so the performance won't be affected that much. And Sony and M$ probably wanted low-cost solution, which AMD can easily deliver.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TaraB*
> 
> The APU in PS4 will use GDDR5 memory for system and video, so the performance won't be affected that much. And Sony and M$ probably wanted low-cost solution, which AMD can easily deliver.


Cool, but i dont see how that will help me a PC gamer apart from games finally being written to make use of multicore CPU's and the More cores the better


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> so someone like me who has dual 6970's i care why the APU is good? i doubt the APU coming out is going to outperform the i7 930 im currently running in a game that has alot of CPU usage, i mean once they patch it proper support for the ps4 8 cores ill see a gain but i run dedicated video, unless they release a APU that can get 120+ FPS @ 1920x1200 in any game out on the market APU's mean Jack to me


Yes perhaps the actual IGP doesn't mean "jack" to *YOU*, but *YOU AND I* are no longer, and haven't been for a while, the majority of the market. A technology company is more than just having the best CPU, it's about adaptability to trending markets. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the purchasing of desktop sales have been going down for years. The APU will serve just as good as any other AMD CPU that uses Piledriver cores, so why buy FX unless you need to do video editing/code compiling on a budget?

The A10-5800k marginally beats the i7-930 in performance and completely destroys it in priceerformace ratio, according to this website;

Benchmarks;
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-AMD-A10-5800K

Price difference
Intel;
http://www.amazon.ca/Intel-Processor-2-80GHz-LGA1366-BX80601930/dp/B0038JE9MU= $293.02
AMD;
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113280= $129.99

Price Difference; 293.02/129.99=2.25
%125 price difference


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes perhaps the actual IGP doesn't mean "jack" to *YOU*, but *YOU AND I* are no longer, and haven't been for a while, the majority of the market. A technology company is more than just having the best CPU, it's about adaptability to trending markets. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the purchasing of desktop sales have been going down for years. The APU will serve just as good as any other AMD CPU that uses Piledriver cores, so why buy FX unless you need to do video editing/code compiling on a budget?
> 
> The A10-5800k marginally beats the i7-930 in performance and completely destroys it in priceerformace ratio, according to this website;
> 
> Benchmarks;
> http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-AMD-A10-5800K
> 
> Price difference
> Intel;
> http://www.amazon.ca/Intel-Processor-2-80GHz-LGA1366-BX80601930/dp/B0038JE9MU= $293.02
> AMD;
> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113280= $129.99
> 
> Price Difference; 293.02/129.99=2.25
> %125 price difference


that part is true.. but you are missing 3 generations of intel with standard desktop performance.. yes apu is the future but the apu is not yet strong enough for workstation full load.. albeit 80% desktop users an apu would be good until you hit cpu intensive gaming encoding and virtual machine environments. Also excel number crunching.. if hsa is written in the programs it well help but not until parrallel operations are coded in


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes perhaps the actual IGP doesn't mean "jack" to *YOU*, but *YOU AND I* are no longer, and haven't been for a while, the majority of the market. A technology company is more than just having the best CPU, it's about adaptability to trending markets. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the purchasing of desktop sales have been going down for years. The APU will serve just as good as any other AMD CPU that uses Piledriver cores, so why buy FX unless you need to do video editing/code compiling on a budget?
> 
> The A10-5800k marginally beats the i7-930 in performance and completely destroys it in priceerformace ratio, according to this website;
> 
> Benchmarks;
> http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-AMD-A10-5800K
> 
> Price difference
> Intel;
> http://www.amazon.ca/Intel-Processor-2-80GHz-LGA1366-BX80601930/dp/B0038JE9MU= $293.02
> AMD;
> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113280= $129.99
> 
> Price Difference; 293.02/129.99=2.25
> %125 price difference


A10-5800K is nowhere near an i7 930 performance wise.... And this is coming from a person who has an A10-6800K, that isn't even close either.

To give you an idea how inaccurate that particular site is for comparing products, they give a higher overclocking rating for the 5800K than the 930. When in reality in order to reach the average overclocking potential of a 930 (they're all D0 stepping) the 5800K would have to reach a frequency of 5.7GHz. On average.

No the site is terrible and you should not even look at it. Just look at proper benchmarks. Even though anand's bench isn't ideal by any means, it still shows individual benches and has an acceptable number of them: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/675?vs=46

Yes, the 5800K won none of the benches against a 94 (they didn't have a 930 so I used a really close by model). And then you take into account the fact that the i7s have much more OCing potential and you reach the conclusion that they really aren't even close to 1st gen i7s.

And no one buys a 1st gen i7s these days.... For the money you buy a 4770K and have a CPU that's twice as fast as a 5800K.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes perhaps the actual IGP doesn't mean "jack" to *YOU*, but *YOU AND I* are no longer, and haven't been for a while, the majority of the market. A technology company is more than just having the best CPU, it's about adaptability to trending markets. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the purchasing of desktop sales have been going down for years. The APU will serve just as good as any other AMD CPU that uses Piledriver cores, so why buy FX unless you need to do video editing/code compiling on a budget?
> 
> The A10-5800k marginally beats the i7-930 in performance and completely destroys it in priceerformace ratio, according to this website;
> 
> Benchmarks;
> http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-930-vs-AMD-A10-5800K
> 
> Price difference
> Intel;
> http://www.amazon.ca/Intel-Processor-2-80GHz-LGA1366-BX80601930/dp/B0038JE9MU= $293.02
> AMD;
> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113280= $129.99
> 
> Price Difference; 293.02/129.99=2.25
> %125 price difference


Before the I7 i had a A64 3800+and before that i had a 2500+ Barton System(which lasted 30 seconds before becoming a 3200+) with a Soft Modded 9800SE. But the difference is i got the i7 930 and Motherboard for FREE at a Lan event back in April 2010 im looking for something that is more than marginally better. Truthfully I'm not even looking at Piledriver FX CPU's they arent worth upgrading too , I want to come back to AMD for my main RIG so badly, but im not into throwing money away, my only hope is AMD keeps the dedicated CPU Sales with Excavator Hopefully being a worthwhile upgrade.

I am mainly a gamer and with Devs finally going to take advantage of AMD's one Saving Grace, which they are aware of i have nothing against APU's but they just arent what im after ATM. Im not seeking an upgrade immediately but next year i will be chasing something and i want to come back home...


----------



## TaraB

Guys, you're comparing two VERY different products - the one is budget APU with decent CPU performance and GPU for modest gaming, while the other one is for heavy tasks.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TaraB*
> 
> Guys, you're comparing two VERY different products - the one is budget APU with decent CPU performance and GPU for modest gaming, while the other one is for heavy tasks.


the point of where this convo went is based on amd killing the fx line cause kavari will be good enough.. that is why the comparison happended is because amds apus are not yet strong enough to compete as a full cpu market..

hence my stance of why it is suicide for amd to kill the fx line so early


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> the point of where this convo went is based on amd killing the fx line cause kavari will be good enough.. that is why the comparison happended is because amds apus are not yet strong enough to compete as a full cpu market..
> 
> hence my stance of why it is suicide for amd to kill the fx line so early


I'm 99.9% sure that there won't be an 8-core steamroller in any form for 2014. But that's 2014, anything beyond that is hard to predict.
AMD might have a native 8 or 10 core steamroller ready for 2015 as an SoC with onboard PCIe 3.0, HT, ethernet and sata controllers (designed for new socket(s)).
So, AMD is not exiting the high-end; they just didn't have anything new for 2014.


----------



## Konbad

its so far away, why wouldn't they have just went to excavator, that's what i would prefer


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> its so far away, why wouldn't they have just went to excavator, that's what i would prefer


Sorry, should've said the new chip might be steamroller or excavator.

Edit:
The new chip would need onboard PCIe for compatibility with AMD's "freedom fabric".


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The new chip would need onboard PCIe for compatibility with AMD's "freedom fabric".


Current ones dont have ondie PCI-E?


----------



## Seronx

This thread should be locked when even the moderators are thread crapping. Steamroller guys, we are talking about Steamroller. Not how the i7 930 gets completely destroyed by the A10-6800K but about all the improvements of Steamroller. Or even, the lack of improvements from Steamroller.


----------



## Konbad

some context of that graph would be cool,

and with the i7 Comments i was just saying what i owned and that what amd currently has is not worth upgrading to, hopefully that changes


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Current ones dont have ondie PCI-E?


Opterons? No.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> This thread should be locked when even the moderators are thread crapping. Steamroller guys, we are talking about Steamroller. Not how the i7 930 gets completely destroyed by the A10-6800K but about all the improvements of Steamroller. Or even, the lack of improvements from Steamroller.


BOINC run on a supposed Kaveri ES. Seems like unstable silicon or BIOS because I don't want something with barely 5% more INT IPC and a major FP IPC regression.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> that part is true.. but you are missing 3 generations of intel with standard desktop performance.. yes apu is the future but the apu is not yet strong enough for workstation full load.. albeit 80% desktop users an apu would be good until you hit cpu intensive gaming encoding and virtual machine environments. Also excel number crunching.. if hsa is written in the programs it well help but not until parrallel operations are coded in


You're the one who made the original comparison not me. If you want a serious workstation computer for 3D rendering then you are not even looking at the APU or FX line, in fact the budgets are literally a world apart, you are comparing apples to oranges. When you are comparing workstation computers you should be looking at Opteron/Xeon chips and FirePRO/Quadro GPU's, the APU and even the Core-i series are irrelevant, try to remain on topic.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> You're the one who made the original comparison not me. If you want a serious workstation computer for 3D rendering then you are not even looking at the APU or FX line, in fact the budgets are literally a world apart, you are comparing apples to oranges. When you are comparing workstation computers you should be looking at Opteron/Xeon chips and FirePRO/Quadro GPU's, the APU and even the Core-i series are irrelevant, try to remain on topic.


pretty sure no... I run excel on a workstation.. I use virtual machines on a workstation.. and video encoding.. its not a matter of looking at the wrong line as I dont do enough to justify a dedicated server.. also I game.. as far as the fx line it serves all the needs at a significantly lower price. Apus will be good for that just not yet obviously you missed my point. The day I can run an apu and have the same performance I will switch. As it stands now it would have cost me an extra 200 or so to go intel and even more to go to your suggestions.. just not worth the cost/performance... would it be nice yes but as my point was is that kavari still would not be in comparison to what I have now and what a fx steamroller chip.. so no you are wrong as not everyone has the income to just throw money at it.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> pretty sure no... I run excel on a workstation.. I use virtual machines on a workstation.. and video encoding.. its not a matter of looking at the wrong line as I dont do enough to justify a dedicated server.. also I game.. as far as the fx line it serves all the needs at a significantly lower price. Apus will be good for that just not yet obviously you missed my point. The day I can run an apu and have the same performance I will switch. As it stands now it would have cost me an extra 200 or so to go intel and even more to go to your suggestions.. just not worth the cost/performance... would it be nice yes but as my point was is that kavari still would not be in comparison to what I have now and what a fx steamroller chip.. so no you are wrong as not everyone has the income to just throw money at it.


Sorry, I misunderstood you, when you said "Workstation" I was assuming you meant it in the traditional sense; "Enterprise/Corporate PC's"


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Opterons? No.
> BOINC run on a supposed Kaveri ES. Seems like unstable silicon or BIOS because I don't want something with barely 5% more INT IPC and a major FP IPC regression.


The resources might scale better since you have only 2 modules
Let's not forget that the cores are still based of the same arch not steamroller.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Sorry, I misunderstood you, when you said "Workstation" I was assuming you meant it in the traditional sense; "Enterprise/Corporate PC's"


My fault for not being clear.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The resources might scale better since you have only 2 modules
> Let's not forget that the cores are still based of the same arch not steamroller.


\
Cores are steamroller in kaveri. If there is a 36% regression in FP performance then steamroller will be the biggest joke since bulldozer.
The lowest clock frequency of this kaveri ES is 1.2 ghz, nominal frequency is 1.8 ghz and max turbo is 2.3. It's possible that a bad bios or unstable silicon is causing the chip to remain at 1.2 ghz more often than not.


----------



## glussier

Amd show around 10% improvement from 1 apu generation, and they are not known for under estimating their cpu performance. Anybody thinking that they will see 30%+ performance increase with Kaveri should wake-up.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Amd show around 10% improvement from 1 apu generation, and they are not known for under estimating their cpu performance. Anybody thinking that they will see 30%+ performance increase with Kaveri should wake-up.


OK, but I expect steamroller to at least have the performance of piledriver. If this ES is running at 1.8 ghz, then FP performance is -36% (a major regression).

On the other hand if you scale these scores by about 40%, it's what I would expect hope for; 30 - 40% more multi-threaded INT performance and 5 - 10% more multithreaded FP performance.
It's not that unrealistic either, 15-20% more single threaded IPC and 15-20% better multi threaded scaling for the INT cores and minor improvements to FP since the FPU doesn't get more execution units or ports.


----------



## Konbad

if it is indeed slower, in any aspect AMD are in serious trouble. because intel has closed the gap with Integrated graphics chips and the next ones will be even better, lets just hope it is a problem with the chip that was sent out or whatever that graph is. because in reality kevari needs to have similar performance to a 3770k in CPU grunt and blow away anything intel has with the GPU portion to make a big impact with all they are boasting with steamroller


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> if it is indeed slower, in any aspect AMD are in serious trouble. because intel has closed the gap with Integrated graphics chips and the next ones will be even better, lets just hope it is a problem with the chip that was sent out or whatever that graph is. because in reality kevari needs to have similar performance to a 3770k in CPU grunt and blow away anything intel has with the GPU portion to make a big impact with all they are boasting with steamroller


A performance regression would be really strange and unlikely. Also, I think kaveri is designed to compete with i3's and i5's.


----------



## Seronx

Based on the Steamroller die that came out May/June.

Kaveri should be getting:
3766.12025 to 4495.04675 for Int.
1068.91875 to 1275.80625 for FP.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Also, I think kaveri is designed to compete with i3's and i5's.


It was designed to compete with Haswell, after it was cancelled in 2012 and redesigned in 2012/2013.


----------



## MrJava

Are you assuming that steamroller has 2 256 bit FMAC's?

If we assume that the steamroller core in kaveri is along the lines of the core presented at hotchips 2012, then the 5 - 10% FP increase in performance makes sense. 30 - 40% increase in multi-threaded INT performance also is not out of the question.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Are you assuming that steamroller has 2 256 bit FMAC's?



I'm saying it should be this.

http://www.realworldtech.com/bulldozer/10/ <-- taking numbers from this

Shared 64 KB L1i (4-way) -> Shared 128 KB L1i (4-way)
16 Entry Instruction Buffers -> 32 Entry Instruction Buffers
uCode -> uOp Cache / 4 Decodes -> 8 Decodes
128 Entry Retirement Queue -> 256 Entry Retirement Queue
96 Entry Physical Register File / 160 Entry FP Physical Register File -> 192 Entry Physical Register File / 640? Entry FP Physical Register File
40 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 60 Entry Unified FP Sched -> 100 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 240 Entry Unified FP Sched
128-bit FMAC/IMAC - 128-bit FMAC/XBAR - 128-bit MMX - 128-bit MMX/FSTO -> 512-bit FMAC/IMAC/XBAR - 512-bit MMX/FSTO
64-bit ALU/IDIV/Count + 64-bit ALU/IMUL/Branch + 2 * 64-bit AGU -> 64-bit ALU/IDIV + 64-bit ALU/IMUL + 64-bit ALU/Count + 64-bit ALU/Branch + 4 * 64-bit AGU
40/44 Entry Load Queue + 24 Entry Store Queue -> 48 Entry Load Queue + 32 Entry Store Queue
32/64 Entry L1 DTLB + 16 KB L1d (4-way) -> 128 Entry L1 DTLB + 32 KB L1d (4-way)


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Are you assuming that steamroller has 2 256 bit FMAC's?
> 
> If we assume that the steamroller core in kaveri is along the lines of the core presented at hotchips 2012, then the 5 - 10% FP increase in performance makes sense. 30 - 40% increase in multi-threaded INT performance also is not out of the question.


isnt 2x256 something they had planned for excavator, it would be cool if they did bring some excavator features over to steamroller, cant make it any worse, or we hope


----------



## glussier

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> if it is indeed slower, in any aspect AMD are in serious trouble. because intel has closed the gap with Integrated graphics chips and the next ones will be even better, lets just hope it is a problem with the chip that was sent out or whatever that graph is. because in reality kevari needs to have similar performance to a 3770k in CPU grunt and blow away anything intel has with the GPU portion to make a big impact with all they are boasting with steamroller


The 6800k can't even compete with the current I5 3570k how do you expect Kaveri to reach the performance of an I7. Amd's APU are low to mid range, they are not going to compete with Intel high end processors?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Amd show around 10% improvement from 1 apu generation, and they are not known for under estimating their cpu performance. Anybody thinking that they will see 30%+ performance increase with Kaveri should wake-up.


AMD is the one who said 30% increase from Piledriver to Steamroller architecture. That is why people are going off 30% increase.


----------



## Konbad

im not saying its going to happen, im just saying AMD needs a big boost, im not even sure if broadwell will be dropping next year but im sure it will pull ahead again. it will be sad times if i3 intels are all that AMD are aiming to and are able to compete against


----------



## Seronx

Intel is skipping Broadwell and releasing Skylake, six months earlier than planned. So, Steamroller will be competing against 22nm Haswell and 14nm Skylake.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> \
> Cores are steamroller in kaveri. If there is a 36% regression in FP performance then steamroller will be the biggest joke since bulldozer.
> The lowest clock frequency of this kaveri ES is 1.2 ghz, nominal frequency is 1.8 ghz and max turbo is 2.3. It's possible that a bad bios or unstable silicon is causing the chip to remain at 1.2 ghz more often than not.


As I recall, that result was from back in April, which looks to be about one year before AMD releases the real thing. That's not beta silicon, but alpha. Likely running on an brand-new chipset in the same state of development, or on a current one that can run, but can't enable all features on the CPU correctly. We don't even know if the cache was properly enabled on that thing. And that's assuming that some hacker just didn't find a way to spoof BOINC's CPU identifier.

There's no reason that there would be a 36 percent regression in FP performance in Kaveri, unless it was bad silicon, bad BIOS, or bad chipset, or some combination thereof.

AMD might have even let that leak onto the Internet to keep everyone in the dark about what they're working on. Years ago, they let Athlon benchmarks leak that showed it to be only slightly faster than a K6-2. Then the real Athlon showed up and beat the crap out of anything Intel had to offer for the next two years. It's too much to expect that again, but it might be faster than anyone expects when the real thing arrives.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> As I recall, that result was from back in April, which looks to be about one year before AMD releases the real thing. That's not beta silicon, but alpha. Likely running on an brand-new chipset in the same state of development, or on a current one that can run, but can't enable all features on the CPU correctly. We don't even know if the cache was properly enabled on that thing. And that's assuming that some hacker just didn't find a way to spoof BOINC's CPU identifier.


June 15th was when the result was validated.


----------



## MrJava

Lol this is probably only possible on the 16nm node or lower.

We should place bets on this stuff.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> I'm saying it should be this.
> 
> http://www.realworldtech.com/bulldozer/10/ <-- taking numbers from this
> 
> Shared 64 KB L1i (4-way) -> Shared 128 KB L1i (4-way)
> 16 Entry Instruction Buffers -> 32 Entry Instruction Buffers
> uCode -> uOp Cache / 4 Decodes -> 8 Decodes
> 128 Entry Retirement Queue -> 256 Entry Retirement Queue
> 96 Entry Physical Register File / 160 Entry FP Physical Register File -> 192 Entry Physical Register File / 640? Entry FP Physical Register File
> 40 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 60 Entry Unified FP Sched -> 100 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 240 Entry Unified FP Sched
> 128-bit FMAC/IMAC - 128-bit FMAC/XBAR - 128-bit MMX - 128-bit MMX/FSTO -> 512-bit FMAC/IMAC/XBAR - 512-bit MMX/FSTO
> 64-bit ALU/IDIV/Count + 64-bit ALU/IMUL/Branch + 2 * 64-bit AGU -> 64-bit ALU/IDIV + 64-bit ALU/IMUL + 64-bit ALU/Count + 64-bit ALU/Branch + 4 * 64-bit AGU
> 40/44 Entry Load Queue + 24 Entry Store Queue -> 48 Entry Load Queue + 32 Entry Store Queue
> 32/64 Entry L1 DTLB + 16 KB L1d (4-way) -> 128 Entry L1 DTLB + 32 KB L1d (4-way)


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Lol this is probably only possible on the 16nm node or lower.


oh? Why?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> oh? Why?


Everything in the core has been doubled (or more); a steamroller module on 28nm would be huge.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Everything in the core has been doubled (or more); a steamroller module on 28nm would be huge.


Nothing in the core has been doubled, everything feeding the cores has been doubled, the transistor count between this and Piledriver is not that much.

The DIE size might not even grow from 32nm to 28nm


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Nothing in the core has been doubled, everything feeding the cores has been doubled, the transistor count between this and Piledriver is not that much.
> 
> The DIE size might not even grow from 32nm to 28nm


I'm talking about seronx's steamroller.

Edit:
Steamroller probably adheres to bulldozer design goals of perf/mm^2.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> June 15th was when the result was validated.


And why would an engineering sample be validated at all. It makes me suspicious. It is obviously the clock speed also is way lower than it will be on release unless this is not an A10 chip but an A6


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> And why would an engineering sample be validated at all. It makes me suspicious. It is obviously the clock speed also is way lower than it will be on release unless this is not an A10 chip but an A6


Even more suspiciously:
nominal freq./max turbo

Kaveri 35W
1.8/2.3

Trinity 17W
1.9/2.4

???

That would have to be one hell of a perf/watt increase to even match trinity.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Even more suspiciously:
> nominal freq./max turbo
> 
> Kaveri 35W
> 1.8/2.3
> 
> Trinity 17W
> 1.9/2.4
> 
> ???
> 
> That would have to be one hell of a perf/watt increase to even match trinity.


Where did you get those numbers from????

AMD Temash (Jaguar)

A4-1200 = 2 core @ 1Ghz + 128 SP's @ 225Mhz (3.9w)

A4-1250 = 2 core @ 1Ghz +128 SP's @ 300Mhz (9w)

A6-1450 = 4 core @ ~1.4ghz + 128SP's @ ~400Mhz (8w) {~ = boost}

A4-5000 = 4 core @ 1.5Ghz + 128 SP's @ 500Mhz (15w)

A6-5200 = 4 core @ 2Ghz +128 SP's @ 600Mhz (25w)

AMD have been working on the low power chips for Ultra Thins and Tablets, with a lot of success, they made huge gains on Power efficiency, so much so that they very close to Intel in performance per watt despite Intel's more recent improvements on the same platform.

25 Watts for a quad core running at 2Ghz and with 128 Stream Processors.
The lowest power chip is less than 4 watts.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'm talking about seronx's steamroller.
> 
> Edit:
> Steamroller probably adheres to bulldozer design goals of perf/mm^2.


Yes i know, its nowhere near that much bigger.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> This thread should be locked when even the moderators are thread crapping. Steamroller guys, we are talking about Steamroller. Not how the i7 930 gets completely destroyed by the A10-6800K but about all the improvements of Steamroller. Or even, the lack of improvements from Steamroller.


Isn't Kavari only a quad core at most?

Why put it against FX 8 cores. :/


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> Isn't Kavari only a quad core at most?


They are all quad-core in the graph.

Kaveri appears to only have 2 core and 4 core parts. While only having 256, 384, and 512 ALU SKUs.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> AMD is the one who said 30% increase from Piledriver *Bulldozer* to Steamroller architecture. That is why people are going off 30% increase.


Fixed.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> Isn't Kavari only a quad core at most?
> 
> Why put it against FX 8 cores. :/


Yes, Kaveri's flagship will top out at two modules (four cores). The FX chips in the graph have two modules turned off, so they are effectively quad cores (2 modules).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Nothing in the core has been doubled, everything feeding the cores has been doubled, the transistor count between this and Piledriver is not that much.
> 
> The DIE size might not even grow from 32nm to 28nm


It's going to shrink according to speculation, the die is suppose to be only 240 mm2 compared to the 246 mm2 that of Trinity.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> A performance regression would be really strange and unlikely. Also, I think kaveri is designed to compete with i3's and i5's.


If AMD can deliver at least 10-15% increase in core performance, even tho we are suppose to see a 20-25% increase. These chips will still give the Haswell i3's a run for their money at their price point. We know it wont beat the i5's in terms of raw CPU performance, but at least it should provide similar feeling performance to the average consumer (if you ever used a APU based machine, they are snappy for some reason).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> \
> Cores are steamroller in kaveri. If there is a 36% regression in FP performance then steamroller will be the biggest joke since bulldozer.
> The lowest clock frequency of this kaveri ES is 1.2 ghz, nominal frequency is 1.8 ghz and max turbo is 2.3. It's possible that a bad bios or unstable silicon is causing the chip to remain at 1.2 ghz more often than not.


If you buy into these benchmark's that are being "leaked", then yea Steamroller might seem like crap in your eyes. Tho let's not do the exact opposite of Bulldozer, and hype Steamroller up to be a bad chip when there isn't even any real validated benchmarks being published yet. The only thing you can guarantee is that Steamrollers multiple threading performance is going to be awesome. Each core is now setup to handle its own thread independently (with shared resources). Something that's held back Bulldozer's multiple threading performance since it was designed. A single decode and dispatcher per module means each thread ran side by side on the two cores, with Steamroller they will run in parallel. So I expect both single thread and multiple thread performance to go up.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> It's going to shrink according to speculation, the die is suppose to be only 240 mm2 compared to the 246 mm2 that of Trinity.


You have two numbers ~206 mm² and ~252 mm².
---
32-nm GloFo PD-SOI with High Speed 11-track Libraries to 28-nm TSMC/GloFo HP/HP+ with High Density 9-track Libraries.

32-nm HSL to 28-nm HDL is the equivalent of going from 32-nm HSL to 22-nm HSL, density-wise. The clock-ability gets hit *REALLY* hard but you can have as much stuff as if it was 22-nm.
---
32-nm GloFo PD-SOI with High Speed 11-track to 20-nm TSMC/GloFo SoC/LPM with High Speed 11-track Libraries. In my opinion, would be a more rational choice for AMD.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Intel is skipping Broadwell and releasing Skylake, six months earlier than planned. So, Steamroller will be competing against 22nm Haswell and 14nm Skylake.


thats going to be fun


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> If you buy into these benchmark's that are being "leaked", then yea Steamroller might seem like crap in your eyes.


I never said that. In fact, this benchmark paints an optimistic picture for steamroller.
If you assume that FP IPC has not regressed at all, then you can only assume that the CPU is running at a 36% lower frequency than the others.
Hence, INT IPC (at least in this benchmark) has increased by a whopping 36%!!


----------



## MrJava

A while back there was a rumour about a 20-core (10 module) MCM based opteron with PCIe 3.0 and HT for 2014. This would imply that a 5 module die was planned but may have been cancelled or postponed to 2015.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> A while back there was a rumour about a 20-core (10 module) MCM based opteron with PCIe 3.0 and HT for 2014. This would imply that a 5 module die was planned but may have been cancelled or postponed to 2015.


It wasn't MCM nor was it a rumor.


Instead of this, we are getting this:
Interlagos(MCM)/Bulldozer -> Abu Dhabi(MCM)/Bulldozer Stepping C -> Warsaw(SCM)/Piledriver


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> The 6800k can't even compete with the current I5 3570k how do you expect Kaveri to reach the performance of an I7. Amd's APU are low to mid range, they are not going to compete with Intel high end processors?


Why would you expect a $145 apu to be able to compete with the highest level I5 chip from Ivy Bridge that costs above $199.00 ???


----------



## glussier

I never said I was expecting anything. Someone said that Kaveri should be able to compete with an I7. I doubt this would happen with Kaveri.


----------



## Konbad

I said it, but i never said should, I said it really needs to


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> I never said I was expecting anything. Someone said that Kaveri should be able to compete with an I7. I doubt this would happen with Kaveri.


in terms of flops it flat out beats every cpu but HSA will be software based at first until later where actually all code with easy instructions is excelled.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> I said it, but i never said should, I said it really needs to


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> I said it, but i never said should, I said it really needs to


It never will. Be realistic. Now if with excavator, if AMD has enough sense, there is the room to build an 8-core APU. That would definitely best an I7 4770k. I doubt if AMD has any intention of producing this chip. The best I think they will give us is a 6 core Excavator. That would be better than a I5 4670k and close to an I7 4770k.


----------



## glussier

Hope you are right. This would force Intel to include gt3e in the desktop cpus. Intel supports opencl and own over 85% of the x86 market, soI think that all developers wll pur the effort in supporting Intel cpus.i


----------



## schmotty

I could really give a (insert explicative here) if anything AMD ever sells for <$300 ever competes with anything Intel sells for >$500.

I look forward to Kaveri and HSA. I think this is the future of computing.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It wasn't MCM nor was it a rumor.
> 
> 
> Instead of this, we are getting this:
> Interlagos(MCM)/Bulldozer -> Abu Dhabi(MCM)/Bulldozer Stepping C -> Warsaw(SCM)/Piledriver


20 cores on one die, yeah right. Interlagos is not mentioned as an MCM on that same roadmap.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *schmotty*
> 
> I look forward to Kaveri and HSA. I think this is the future of computing.


Some details on the xbox one soc were revealed today - it contains over 15 offload accelerators (zlib, sound, etc.) for the CPU which are all cache coherent. That's HSA.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> I said it, but i never said should, I said it really needs to


It doesn't need to, it just needs to have a large bump in core performance. Steamroller has a much better multiple threading model because of each core having its own decoder. If AMD can deliver the 30% gain they claimed over Bulldozer. Steamroller will obliterate the i3 per usual by now, and might prove to be some sort of competition for the i5. Now i'm not saying it will beat the i5 (we all know it most likely wont), but it should be up there in the same benchmarks. That's all *if* AMD can really deliver with Steamroller. I would like to see something like this.

2012 = APU vs i3
2014 = APU vs i5
2016 = APU vs i7
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> It never will. Be realistic. Now if with excavator, if AMD has enough sense, there is the room to build an 8-core APU. That would definitely best an I7 4770k. I doubt if AMD has any intention of producing this chip. The best I think they will give us is a 6 core Excavator. That would be better than a I5 4670k and close to an I7 4770k.


The current eight core FX chips already do beat the i7 in thread heavy workloads. So AMD has already built a "i7 killer" if you wanna call it that, tho AMD learned the hard way that single thread performance is what matters most.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> 20 cores on one die, yeah right. Interlagos is not mentioned as an MCM on that same roadmap.
> Some details on the xbox one soc were revealed today - it contains over 15 offload accelerators (zlib, sound, etc.) for the CPU which are all cache coherent. That's HSA.


It uses TSMC HPM fab as I expected, which means Kaveri will most likely be TSMC HP. So I am expecting high base clocks for Kaveri.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> 20 cores on one die, yeah right.


Four cores on one die, yeah right!
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2230

IMPOSSIBRU ON 65-nm!
---
Just to note 20 cores on one die on 32-nm isn't impossible if you use High Density Libraries.

*SUPER EDIT:*
Kaveri has Quad-channel.

FX-8150 = OR-B2
FX-8350 = OR-C0
A10-5800 = TN-A1
A10-6800 = RL-A1
*Kaveri = KV-B0*

The GPU has a hUMA enabled GOP UEFI VBIOS.

The firmware required for an operational Kaveri has launched. We then should be seeing a lot more benchmarks for the coming months before availability appears in 2014.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The current eight core FX chips already do beat the i7 in thread heavy workloads.


In the vast majority of cases they definitely do not beat the i7s in well multithreaded environments. The i5s yes but not the i7s.

Yes there are cases where it does happen but they're extremely rare compared to the situations where the i7s are clearly ahead.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> It doesn't need to, it just needs to have a large bump in core performance. Steamroller has a much better multiple threading model because of each core having its own decoder. If AMD can deliver the 30% gain they claimed over Bulldozer. Steamroller will obliterate the i3 per usual by now, and might prove to be some sort of competition for the i5. Now i'm not saying it will beat the i5 (we all know it most likely wont), but it should be up there in the same benchmarks. That's all *if* AMD can really deliver with Steamroller. I would like to see something like this.
> 
> 2012 = APU vs i3
> 2014 = APU vs i5
> 2016 = APU vs i7
> The current eight core FX chips already do beat the i7 in thread heavy workloads. So AMD has already built a "i7 killer" if you wanna call it that, tho AMD learned the hard way that single thread performance is what matters most.
> It uses TSMC HPM fab as I expected, which means Kaveri will most likely be TSMC HP. So I am expecting high base clocks for Kaveri.


well im being hopeful if the new APU can come in the ballpark of a i5 3570k interms of pure processor grunt im quite confident the GPU part will be a significant jump over what intel has in any of their CPU's and even better be comparable to a 3770k in performance per $ spent for their top of the range A10 then it will be good news for AMD and thats all im wanting really


----------



## MrJava

Carizzo? Every board we've seen so far has dual channel DDR3. Although, apparently kaveri supports quad-channel GDDR5 with the same memory controller.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Four cores on one die, yeah right!
> http://www.anandtech.com/show/2230
> 
> IMPOSSIBRU ON 65-nm!
> ---
> Just to note 20 cores on one die on 32-nm isn't impossible if you use High Density Libraries.
> 
> *SUPER EDIT:*
> Kaveri has Quad-channel.
> 
> FX-8150 = OR-B2
> FX-8350 = OR-C0
> A10-5800 = TN-A1
> A10-6800 = RL-A1
> *Kaveri = KV-B0*
> 
> The GPU has a hUMA enabled GOP UEFI VBIOS.
> 
> The firmware required for an operational Kaveri has launched. We then should be seeing a lot more benchmarks for the coming months before availability appears in 2014.


----------



## Konbad

exactly im hoping this sep 25th press event or whatever might have more than just the hawaii GPU, would be cool if AMD added DDR4 Support early then leave it up to the Board Manufactures as to when chip-sets supporting DDR4 is viable


----------



## MrJava

I was hoping it would support DDR3 2600 (OC) for 41.6 GB/s in dual channel.
At least it should be able to do DDR3 2400 for 38.4 GB/s in dual channel.

Other possible configurations:
quad channel DDR3 1600 = 51.2 GB/s
quad channel DDR3 2133 = 68.2 GB/s

dual channel DDR4 3200 = 51.2 GB/s
quad channel DDR4 3200 = 102.4 GB/s (where things start to make sense)

Edit:
For reference the kaveri's GPU to memory controller bus supports 154 GB/s
and kaveri's CPU to GPU (coherent) bus supports 76.8 GB/s

Edit 2:
quad channel DDR4 4266 = 136.5 GB/s
octo channel GDDR5 5500 effective = 176 GB/s (PS4 APU)


----------



## Konbad

yes quad channel would be nice, we can only hope AMD announce more stuff and what they promised us is true


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> yes quad channel would be nice, we can only hope AMD announce more stuff and what they promised us is true


Nobody knows how kaveri's IMC works, so i don't discount the possibility that we could see quad channel DDR3. Unfortunately, none of the boards so far seem to support it.

Maybe we'll see it in mobile with quad channel DDR3 or GDDR5.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Nobody knows how kaveri's IMC works, so i don't discount the possibility that we could see quad channel DDR3. Unfortunately, none of the boards so far seem to support it.
> 
> Maybe we'll see it in mobile with quad channel DDR3 or GDDR5.


Do the boards have to be specifically made for quad channel? I thought that as long as a board has 4 memory slots the traces all come back to the CPU itself where the memory controller is. Would it be the CPU's memory controller that dictates whether it can use dual or quad channel setups?


----------



## Seronx

72-bit DCT0/1 or 36-bit DCT0 / 36-bit DCT1
72-bit DCT2/3 or 36-bit DCT2 / 36-bit DCT3

Probably in the BIOS, you'll get an option for Quad Unganged or Dual Ganged. Trinity/Richland will be locked to Dual Ganged because it doesn't support Quad Unganged.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Nobody knows how kaveri's IMC works, so i don't discount the possibility that we could see quad channel DDR3. Unfortunately, none of the boards so far seem to support it.
> 
> Maybe we'll see it in mobile with quad channel DDR3 or GDDR5.
> 
> 
> 
> Do the boards have to be specifically made for quad channel? I thought that as long as a board has 4 memory slots the traces all come back to the CPU itself where the memory controller is. Would it be the CPU's memory controller that dictates whether it can use dual or quad channel setups?
Click to expand...

You need a different socket for all the extra pins needed. A hint on how it would look like you can see with the Intel sockets. LGA1156 socket is dual channel, LGA1366 socket CPUs are triple channel, LGA1567 socket CPUs are quad channel. The numbers in the socket name is the number of pins.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Do the boards have to be specifically made for quad channel? I thought that as long as a board has 4 memory slots the traces all come back to the CPU itself where the memory controller is. Would it be the CPU's memory controller that dictates whether it can use dual or quad channel setups?


I'd always thought that triple or quad channel would involve more circuitry on the motherboard and more pins in the socket than FM2+ has.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 64-bit DCT0/1 or 32-bit DCT0 / 32-bit DCT1
> 64-bit DCT2/3 or 32-bit DCT2 / 32-bit DCT3
> 
> Probably in the BIOS, you'll get an option for Quad Unganged or Dual Ganged. Trinity/Richland will be locked to Dual Ganged because it doesn't support Quad Unganged.


Why would 4 32-bit channels be any different than 2 64 bit channels, bandwidth wise? Also those 4 32 bit channels would be for 32 bit GDDR5 chips, not 64 bit DDR3 chips.

Kaveri might have an IMC strong enough to drive dual channel DDR3 2600 on the desktop, while 512 spus and quad channel gddr5 make pretty good sense for mobile.

Edit:
Strapping 4500mhz gddr5 ram to kaveri would have something between 8770m and 8830m level performance assuming gpu clocks are the same as the last APU. Sounds like a winning idea to me.


----------



## schmotty

Kaveri being an APU, and AMD pushing HSA, why would they want two separate types of memory? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of hUMA? Perhaps on a Steamroller FX chip ddr3/4 makes sense, but then you would need a discreet GPU and those come with thier own memory on the card.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *schmotty*
> 
> Kaveri being an APU, and AMD pushing HSA, why would they want two separate types of memory? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of hUMA? Perhaps on a Steamroller FX chip ddr3/4 makes sense, but then you would need a discreet GPU and those come with thier own memory on the card.


Its not separate, kaveri (supposedly) has a memory controller which can *either* support dual channel DDR3 or quad channel GDDR5. Not both. Same chip, two possible configurations.

GDDR5 for mobile kaveri seems like a good idea since at that point, anything below an 8770 becomes irrelevant and its also a big win for battery life. Unfortunately, it might involve a lot of GDDR5 chips soldered to the motherboard and no capability for memory expansion.


----------



## EniGma1987

Im still of the opinion that we have no chance of seeing GDDR5 with Kaveri. That rumor started because the APU made by AMD for the PS4 was using GDDR5, but we know for a fact that the PS4 and Kaveri are completely different. Kaveri uses Bulldozer architecture while PS4 has Jaguar core architecture. The memory controller does not have to be the same for both chips, and Sony supposedly owns the IP for the GDDR5 controller in their custom solution. It wouldnt be something that AMD could just cut and paste into a whole different CPU. That, along with the fact that there are none, and currently no plans for memory companies to release RAM sticks with GDDR5 chips would suggest it is nothing more than a wishful rumor. To solder all memory to the board would be a bad idea on desktop, and it doesnt make much sense for AMD to work on developing both a GDDR5 and DDR3 controller and put them both inside Kaveri and use one for laptop and embedded and the other for desktop. I really don't think we will see anything more than standard doul channel DDR3 like we have now unfortunately. And probably get a dual or maybe quad channel DDR4 controller with the CPU after Kaveri in the next generation.


----------



## anubis44

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> But the fact is we just dont know if the FX line was cancelled or if we will see a Steamroller variant, and we wont know till the next roadmap is put out in a few months.


If it is technically possible to put Steamroller on an AM3+ chip, AMD will do it. AMD has long recognized that one of their big advantages over Intel is socket longevity. AMD customers can almost always count on being able to upgrade their systems with 2 and even 3 generations of processor before having up upgrade their motherboard. But there may well be a migration to FM2+ from AM3+ eventually, as products like the Athlon X4-750 show AMD is willing to make chips for FM2 without integrated graphics - likely a clear signal to gamers that FM/FM2+ will accomodate enthusiasts/gamers/overclockers well as mainstream users.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Im still of the opinion that we have no chance of seeing GDDR5 with Kaveri. That rumor started because the APU made by AMD for the PS4 was using GDDR5, but we know for a fact that the PS4 and Kaveri are completely different. Kaveri uses Bulldozer architecture while PS4 has Jaguar core architecture. The memory controller does not have to be the same for both chips, and Sony supposedly owns the IP for the GDDR5 controller in their custom solution. It wouldnt be something that AMD could just cut and paste into a whole different CPU. That, along with the fact that there are none, and currently no plans for memory companies to release RAM sticks with GDDR5 chips would suggest it is nothing more than a wishful rumor. To solder all memory to the board would be a bad idea on desktop, and it doesnt make much sense for AMD to work on developing both a GDDR5 and DDR3 controller and put them both inside Kaveri and use one for laptop and embedded and the other for desktop. I really don't think we will see anything more than standard doul channel DDR3 like we have now unfortunately. And probably get a dual or maybe quad channel DDR4 controller with the CPU after Kaveri in the next generation.


i would have thought AMD would have been working towards something like Volta's(nvidia) Stacked DRAM


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> i would have thought AMD would have been working towards something like Volta's(nvidia) Stacked DRAM



They were going for Stacked Die. Which can be DRAM or GPU stacking.


----------



## glussier

Kaveri has support for both ddr3 and gddr5. However, the support is one or the other.


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Im still of the opinion that we have no chance of seeing GDDR5 with Kaveri. That rumor started because the APU made by AMD for the PS4 was using GDDR5, but we know for a fact that the PS4 and Kaveri are completely different. *Kaveri uses Bulldozer architecture* while PS4 has Jaguar core architecture. The memory controller does not have to be the same for both chips, and Sony supposedly owns the IP for the GDDR5 controller in their custom solution. It wouldnt be something that AMD could just cut and paste into a whole different CPU. That, along with the fact that there are none, and currently no plans for memory companies to release RAM sticks with GDDR5 chips would suggest it is nothing more than a wishful rumor. To solder all memory to the board would be a bad idea on desktop, and it doesnt make much sense for AMD to work on developing both a GDDR5 and DDR3 controller and put them both inside Kaveri and use one for laptop and embedded and the other for desktop. I really don't think we will see anything more than standard doul channel DDR3 like we have now unfortunately. And probably get a dual or maybe quad channel DDR4 controller with the CPU after Kaveri in the next generation.


Kaveri is using Steamroller architecture. Bulldozer was a bust.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Kaveri has support for both ddr3 and gddr5. However, the support is one or the other.


I really hope AMD and OEMs have the balls to do a gddr5 based kaveri laptop.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *schmotty*
> 
> Kaveri is using Steamroller architecture. Bulldozer was a bust.


Ya I know. I meant it as the Bulldozer design. It is a whole class of products now based on the first design theory. Everyone knows the newest APU doesn't copy the old architecture exactly.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *schmotty*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Im still of the opinion that we have no chance of seeing GDDR5 with Kaveri. That rumor started because the APU made by AMD for the PS4 was using GDDR5, but we know for a fact that the PS4 and Kaveri are completely different. *Kaveri uses Bulldozer architecture* while PS4 has Jaguar core architecture. The memory controller does not have to be the same for both chips, and Sony supposedly owns the IP for the GDDR5 controller in their custom solution. It wouldnt be something that AMD could just cut and paste into a whole different CPU. That, along with the fact that there are none, and currently no plans for memory companies to release RAM sticks with GDDR5 chips would suggest it is nothing more than a wishful rumor. To solder all memory to the board would be a bad idea on desktop, and it doesnt make much sense for AMD to work on developing both a GDDR5 and DDR3 controller and put them both inside Kaveri and use one for laptop and embedded and the other for desktop. I really don't think we will see anything more than standard doul channel DDR3 like we have now unfortunately. And probably get a dual or maybe quad channel DDR4 controller with the CPU after Kaveri in the next generation.
> 
> 
> 
> Kaveri is using Steamroller architecture. Bulldozer was a bust.
Click to expand...

Steamroller is Bulldozer. Steamroller, Piledriver, and Bulldozer are all referred to as bdver3, bdver2, and bdver1 in GCC documentation submitted by AMD. It is similar to how Intel has different code names for what are basically a die shrink of the same thing (Sandy Bridge -> Ivy Bridge), but AMD does it backwards and improves the architecture instead of improving the fab process.

Excavator will probably be called bdver4 and if there's anything after that that uses modules, it'll be bdver5, bdver6, etc.

bdver1 was a fantastic idea poorly executed, and when you make an x86 architecture from scratch that's so radically different like bdver1 was, it's honestly expected to see issues arise and massive room for improvement. However, in my opinion, that's a great thing, because it means AMD managed to create something brand new that was kind of comparable to what Intel has had for ages and has refined over and over and over again.

I would think that AMD has a lot more room to grow still, if they choose to maintain the bulldozer module architecture, and there's a lot more room for them compared to Intel. People do not give AMD enough credit with Bulldozer and the fact that they made something completely new that was about the same as the old stuff and was still kind of competitive with Intel.

Intel has tried to make new architectures as well, one of which is Itanium, which is a failure, and the other is Atom, which has been a disaster for half a decade, far worse than Bulldozer was.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Steamroller is Bulldozer. Steamroller, Piledriver, and Bulldozer are all referred to as bdver3, bdver2, and bdver1 in GCC documentation submitted by AMD. It is similar to how Intel has different code names for what are basically a die shrink of the same thing (Sandy Bridge -> Ivy Bridge), but AMD does it backwards and improves the architecture instead of improving the fab process.
> 
> Excavator will probably be called bdver4 and if there's anything after that that uses modules, it'll be bdver5, bdver6, etc.
> 
> bdver1 was a fantastic idea poorly executed, and when you make an x86 architecture from scratch that's so radically different like bdver1 was, it's honestly expected to see issues arise and massive room for improvement. However, in my opinion, that's a great thing, because it means AMD managed to create something brand new that was kind of comparable to what Intel has had for ages and has refined over and over and over again.
> 
> I would think that AMD has a lot more room to grow still, if they choose to maintain the bulldozer module architecture, and there's a lot more room for them compared to Intel. People do not give AMD enough credit with Bulldozer and the fact that they made something completely new that was about the same as the old stuff and was still kind of competitive with Intel.
> 
> Intel has tried to make new architectures as well, one of which is Itanium, which is a failure, and the other is Atom, which has been a disaster for half a decade, far worse than Bulldozer was.


If I am not mistaken they had the idea for bulldozer since the athlon days.. however during that time the process just was not viable and multithreading was unheard of.

I agree AMD does deserve more credit.


----------



## MrJava

OG Bulldozer would've performed soooooo much better with proper caches. Extremely strange design decisions in that regard.
Why only 2-way associative for the i-cache?
Why write through for the d-cache when the L2 cache has such high latency?
Why didn't they do a mostly inclusive write back, write allocate design for the L1 d-cache?
Seriously, is there a reason that bulldozer went with a write through design? I don't think any other modern architecture does this.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> OG Bulldozer would've performed soooooo much better with proper caches. Extremely strange design decisions in that regard.
> Why only 2-way associative for the i-cache?
> Why write through for the d-cache when the L2 cache has such high latency?
> Why didn't they do a mostly inclusive write back, write allocate design for the L1 d-cache?
> Seriously, is there a reason that bulldozer went with a write through design? I don't think any other modern architecture does this.


I think a lot of it boils down to lack of funds. Write-through probably simplified a ton of stuff in getting the architecture to work initially, and then never had time to redesign a better way.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> OG Bulldozer would've performed soooooo much better with proper caches. Extremely strange design decisions in that regard.
> Why only 2-way associative for the i-cache?
> Why write through for the d-cache when the L2 cache has such high latency?
> Why didn't they do a mostly inclusive write back, write allocate design for the L1 d-cache?
> Seriously, is there a reason that bulldozer went with a write through design? I don't think any other modern architecture does this.
> 
> 
> 
> I think a lot of it boils down to lack of funds. Write-through probably simplified a ton of stuff in getting the architecture to work initially, and then never had time to redesign a better way.
Click to expand...

Yeah, remember delay upon delay? It may have been a time thing as well as a money thing too.

In Steamroller related news, 22nm SOI exists: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20130828_612950.html

And IBM is about to roll out 22nm SOI chips. How close are GloFo and IBM? The die, I've read, is rather huge, 550mm^2 at least, maybe even 650mm^2 or so, meaning that it must be yielding somewhat decently.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Kaveri has support for both ddr3 and gddr5. However, the support is one or the other.


We don't actually know if the IMC has GDDR5 support or not. It was a rumor started back a while ago as "documentation" was "leaked" stating it would. It also stated there would be a 6 core Kaveri as well, tho we know now (thanks to ASUS A88XM-A motherboard) that is not happening either. Like I said in a previous post, I have my doubts that we will see GDDR5 support at all on the desktop channel. The next step for AMD is DDR4, which brings memory beyond the 2400 MHz barrier and up beyond 3600 MHz. Not to mention DDR4 uses a entire channel per module (technologies like dual, triple, quad channel are no longer needed). So memory bandwidth will be much better with DDR4. With Carizzo being rumored backwards compatible with FM2+ tho, I am not sure about the whole situation. As I have doubts AMD would phase out FM2+ after a single generation of APU's.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Ya I know. I meant it as the Bulldozer design. It is a whole class of products now based on the first design theory. Everyone knows the newest APU doesn't copy the old architecture exactly.


Steamroller is actually suppose to be a major rebuild of the Bulldozer architecture. Tho a majority of the fundamentals will remain the same.

On a side note, the G1.Sniper A88X motherboard official page is up. Nice board, but I won't be buying it due to its weaker VRM (4+2 phase). It's more of a feature packed board rather than a overclockers board. I anticipate the arrival of the FM2+ Extreme6.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Do the boards have to be specifically made for quad channel? I thought that as long as a board has 4 memory slots the traces all come back to the CPU itself where the memory controller is. Would it be the CPU's memory controller that dictates whether it can use dual or quad channel setups?


Yes, it does have to do largely with the memory controller in the CPU and the chipsets(primarily the Northbridge Chip) which is exactly why you will not see quad channel memory from AMD for quite sometime, their IMCs and their chipsets are too weak to keep up with that sort of bandwidth and remain within a reasonable TDP for the mass consumer. Nobody wants a CPU that will drain a battery in a laptop in five minutes, no matter how "powerful it is.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> You need a different socket for all the extra pins needed. A hint on how it would look like you can see with the Intel sockets. LGA1156 socket is dual channel, LGA1366 socket CPUs are triple channel, LGA1567 socket CPUs are quad channel. The numbers in the socket name is the number of pins.


It has nothing to do with pins and everything to do with the IMC and the Chipsets. The only reason why the LGA 2011 sockets are so big is because the IMC has to be big for the extra bandwidth.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'd always thought that triple or quad channel would involve more circuitry on the motherboard and more pins in the socket than FM2+ has.


You are partially correct, it would involve a better chipset(which usually results in making it bigger) and due to the actual size of the CPU(due to a larger IMC) they will have to add more pins, but the pins themselves only act as a conductor for the current to pass through, nothing more.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> You need a different socket for all the extra pins needed. A hint on how it would look like you can see with the Intel sockets. LGA1156 socket is dual channel, LGA1366 socket CPUs are triple channel, LGA1567 socket CPUs are quad channel. The numbers in the socket name is the number of pins.
> 
> 
> 
> It has nothing to do with pins and everything to do with the IMC and the Chipsets. The only reason why the LGA 2011 sockets are so big is because the IMC has to be big for the extra bandwidth.
Click to expand...

That's why I was careful not to mention the LGA2011 socket if you noticed, instead mentioned the LGA1567 socket. It does not have those 450 extra pins and still is quad channel.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes, it does have to do largely with the memory controller in the CPU and the chipsets(primarily the Northbridge Chip) which is exactly why you will not see quad channel memory from AMD for quite sometime, their IMCs and their chipsets are too weak to keep up with that sort of bandwidth and remain within a reasonable TDP for the mass consumer. Nobody wants a CPU that will drain a battery in a laptop in five minutes, no matter how "powerful it is.
> ....


That's a bummer!
If Kaveri is so much better in all the departments then once overclocked the bottleneck is only going to be worse. One reason i'm not excited about DDR4 (even in 2015) is because it's going to much more expensive and it most probably will not have a place in the budget of someone who's looking to buy an APU. And it's going to be DDR4 2400 which from what i gather is not going to alleviate all the bandwidth issues (and once DDR4 is here it's Carrizo's time not Kaveri), quad channel DDR3 is a much better option today imo.


----------



## Dynamo11

The new updated roadmap points toward AM3+ Steamroller not happening, although AMD called FM2+ APUs "High End" so they are clearly going with that.
So my mind's made up, I'll hold onto my AM2+ rig for a little longer and get an FM2+ set up


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> The new updated roadmap points toward AM3+ Steamroller not happening, although AMD called FM2+ APUs "High End" so they are clearly going with that.
> So my mind's made up, I'll hold onto my AM2+ rig for a little longer and get an FM2+ set up


Link for road map please?


----------



## EniGma1987

Kaveri AGESA code:
Quote:


> - Support for KV-B0 stepping.
> - "Spectre" & "Spooky" HUMA GOP VBIOS
> - *DCT0, DCT1, DCT2, DCT3* config array


Boom.

FYI, Spectre and Spooky are the GPU codenames in Kaveria CPU, Spectre being the high end.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Kaveri AGESA code:
> Boom.


Dumb it down for the noob that i am please.








So, that means it's quad channel?


----------



## EniGma1987

Looks like it. In bios right now we have DCT0 and DCT1 for dual channel. The addition of the new ones would indicate that we are going to have quad channel DDR3 with Kaveri.


----------



## MrJava

Those are 4 32 bit channels though right? Now all we need is how many GDDR5 chips per channel in kaveri. Samsung has 4 gbit gddr5 available, so with 4 chips/channel you get 8GB total system RAM.

Btw, where'd you find that?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Those are 4 32 bit channels though right? Now all we need is how many GDDR5 chips per channel in kaveri. Samsung has 4 gbit gddr5 available, so with 4 chips/channel you get 8GB total system RAM.
> 
> Btw, where'd you find that?


No indication those are somehow 32-bit channels rather than the normal 64-bit. Although, no indication is is not 32-bit channels either I suppose...

That info comes from the AGESA code update for the CPU that goes into a motherboard bios. I saw it specifically from "The Stilt" who first posted it (not on this forum). Stilt is one of the most respected overclockers in the world and is incredibly knowledgeable about in depth CPU workings, especially from AMD. He is the one who released the x87 patch for Bulldozer style architecture (Zambezi, Vishera, Trinity, and Richland compatible) that modifies the AGESA code and patches the system to process x87 differently than how AMD designed it to provide 10-15% speed improvements

In case anyone doesnt know, AGESA code is what allows the bios to initiate devices on AMD motherboards. It stands for "*A*MD *G*eneric *E*ncapsulated *S*oftware *A*rchitecture", and we normally get new versions whenever a new CPU is being released and sometimes at other points as well to fix bugs


----------



## roofrider

Whoa! Quick! Get "The Stilt" to OCN!


----------



## MrJava

Bright side of news reported on the GDDR5 rumor first. They mentioned 4 32 bit channels (36 bit ECC).

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/3/5/amd-kaveri-unveiled-pc-architecture-gets-gddr5.aspx
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> No indication those are somehow 32-bit channels rather than the normal 64-bit.
> 
> That info comes from the AGESA code update for the CPU that goes into a motherboard bios. I saw it specifically from "The Stilt" who first posted it (not on this forum). Stilt is one of the most respected overclockers in the world and is incredibly knowledgeable about in depth CPU workings, especially from AMD. He is the one who released the x87 patch for Bulldozer style architecture (Zambezi, Vishera, Trinity, and Richland compatible) that modifies the AGESA code and patches the system to process x87 differently than how AMD designed it to provide 10-15% speed improvements


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes, it does have to do largely with the memory controller in the CPU and the chipsets(primarily the Northbridge Chip) which is exactly why you will not see quad channel memory from AMD for quite sometime, their IMCs and their chipsets are too weak to keep up with that sort of bandwidth and remain within a reasonable TDP for the mass consumer. Nobody wants a CPU that will drain a battery in a laptop in five minutes, no matter how "powerful it is.
> It has nothing to do with pins and everything to do with the IMC and the Chipsets. The only reason why the LGA 2011 sockets are so big is because the IMC has to be big for the extra bandwidth.
> You are partially correct, it would involve a better chipset(which usually results in making it bigger) and due to the actual size of the CPU(due to a larger IMC) they will have to add more pins, but the pins themselves only act as a conductor for the current to pass through, nothing more.


Opeterons being quad channel proves your ignorance on the subject of memory channels.

There is no need for quad channel as dual channel is barely saturated in consumer systems, which is why even the 3770K is a dual channel chip and it doesn't affect the performance of the ship negatively. Triple and quad channel serve no real purpose other than benchmark numbers. It's the technology in the chips that matters, which is why the 3960K has higher performance, despite being lower clocked than some other Intel chips.


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Link for road map please?


http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130826PD216.html


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130826PD216.html


eh... the article also doesn't say that it will not have am3+ steamroller.. as it states that am3+ will account for 30% of sales


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> eh... the article also doesn't say that it will not have am3+ steamroller.. as it states that am3+ will account for 30% of sales


+1
It doesn't say death of AM3+ or no SR. Also, unless it's a link to the actual roadmap - I'm not going to pay attention to it. Too many things get lost in translation...


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> +1
> It doesn't say death of AM3+ or no SR. Also, unless it's a link to the actual roadmap - I'm not going to pay attention to it. Too many things get lost in translation...


AMD is has delayed/is delaying its most important products by 6+ months - kaveri, dual core mobile kabinis and beema. I wouldn't be surprised if seattle was delayed as well. Do you see any room in there for some top secret AM3+ steamroller to pop up?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD is has delayed/is delaying its most important products by 6+ months - kaveri, dual core mobile kabinis and beema. I wouldn't be surprised if seattle was delayed as well. Do you see any room in there for some top secret AM3+ steamroller to pop up?


No, I'm saying he said the Roadmap confirmed no SR - which it didn't.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Opeterons being quad channel proves your ignorance on the subject of memory channels.
> 
> There is no need for quad channel as dual channel is barely saturated in consumer systems


Those opterons also are in a platform where the socket has a ton more pins as well as a different chipset on the motherboard and usually requires registered ECC memory.
Consumer space with these APU's will require much higher RAm bandwidth to get all the performance out of the iGPU. We already see bottlenecks now in current gen, next gen will be even worse. So yes, there is a need for quad channel memory in the consumer space. That, or DDR4 or VERY high clocked DDR3. However quad DDR-1333 is way cheaper than either of those other options and gives more bandwidth.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Also, unless it's a link to the actual roadmap - I'm not going to pay attention to it. Too many things get lost in translation...


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Looks like it. In bios right now we have DCT0 and DCT1 for dual channel. The addition of the new ones would indicate that we are going to have quad channel DDR3 with Kaveri.


Quad channel is a bad rumor, we can already confirm Kaveri will have a dual channel IMC. How can we tell? Simply put all of the "enthusiast" high end FM2+ boards being showcased are labeled for dual channel architecture. The ASUS A88XM-A, ASRock FM2 Extreme6+, and the Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X all only support dual channel according to the official websites specifications. If the Extreme6+ doesn't support it, I doubt we will see a motherboard that will.

ASUS A88XM-A
Quote:


> Dual Channel Memory Architecture


ASRock FM2 Extreme6+
Quote:


> Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Technology


Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X
Quote:


> Dual channel memory architecture


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Quad channel is a bad rumor, we can already confirm Kaveri will have a dual channel IMC.


Then why would the AGESA code from AMD provide a way for the bios to enable quad channel memory? Getting the code from AMD is a much more reputable source than anything else could ever be.


----------



## MrJava

Dual channel DDR3 (64 bits per channel * 2 = 128 bit wide) seems confirmed.
Quad channel GDDR5 (32 bits per channel * 4 = 128 bit wide) is still possible.


----------



## roofrider

@Opcode
I guess time will tell.
But that Asus board can't be an enthusiast variant as it only has 3+2 phase design.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Then why would the AGESA code from AMD provide a way for the bios to enable quad channel memory? Getting the code from AMD is a much more reputable source than anything else could ever be.


Link us to your source, so we can look at the source code as well.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> eh... the article also doesn't say that it will not have am3+ steamroller.. as it states that am3+ will account for 30% of sales


IMO, If they arent going to release Steamroller on AM3+ it's because globofo cant support the volume yet. Now the question becomes, If they can't launch it within 2014 should they even bother? By then Excavator will be around the corner as well as DDR4. This is the only reason I would see for the cancellation of Steamroller on AM3+. It's a large portion of their install base to just ignore. Especially for a company that is doing everything they can do increase revenue and help their bottom dollar.

The good news is Kaveri should be promising and hopefully a great overclocker if it travels in the footsteps of Richland (when it comes to overclocking).

Edit:
Also the fact that the Fx-9xxx chips exist at all makes me worried for AM3+. How would it look to launch a chip at 900$ and then launch Steamroller AM3+ 9 months later and it completely destroys it in terms of performance at 1/3rd the cost? IDK, I still cant figure that chip out.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Also the fact that the Fx-9xxx chips exist at all makes me worried for AM3+. How would it look to launch a chip at 900$ and then launch Steamroller AM3+ 9 months later and it completely destroys it in terms of performance at 1/3rd the cost? IDK, I still cant figure that chip out.


I've been wondering this as well. I was thinking those chips were aimed at people who only see GHz. Also that they released those to get some more funding for a project they were working on. The average person looking for a gaming rig probably only hears "i7", "GHz", and "FPS" - they don't know that games rely on 2 or 4 (for the most part) high IPC cores to run.

On a side note: Does IPC mean the instructions on a single core, or the entire chip? If it's for the entire chip, then we need IPCPC - Instructions per cycle per core.
^ I'm sure that sounds like a stupid question to most of you guys.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> On a side note: Does IPC mean the instructions on a single core, or the entire chip? If it's for the entire chip, then we need IPCPC - Instructions per cycle per core.
> ^ I'm sure that sounds like a stupid question to most of you guys.


Instructions per cycle, It refers to a single core but affects the overall performance of the chip since each core will have that same IPC. (Sometimes, In the case of bulldozer)


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> each core will have that same IPC. *(Sometimes, In the case of bulldozer)*


I knew that - with the AMD FX series, the extra cores do not get the full IPC possibility. But I was wanting to make sure IPC was referring to the individual cores.


----------



## robE

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> IMO, If they arent going to release Steamroller on AM3+ it's because globofo cant support the volume yet. Now the question becomes, If they can't launch it within 2014 should they even bother? By then Excavator will be around the corner as well as DDR4. This is the only reason I would see for the cancellation of Steamroller on AM3+. It's a large portion of their install base to just ignore. Especially for a company that is doing everything they can do increase revenue and help their bottom dollar.
> 
> The good news is Kaveri should be promising and hopefully a great overclocker if it travels in the footsteps of Richland (when it comes to overclocking).
> 
> Edit:
> Also the fact that the Fx-9xxx chips exist at all makes me worried for AM3+. How would it look to launch a chip at 900$ and then launch Steamroller AM3+ 9 months later and it completely destroys it in terms of performance at 1/3rd the cost? IDK, I still cant figure that chip out.


Didn't they slashed the price in half for the 9xxx chips?


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *robE*
> 
> Didn't they slashed the price in half for the 9xxx chips?


That was only on 1 website somewhere outside the states. If you look everywhere else the price is still close to $900. Take newegg for example. $879
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113347


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> That was only on 1 website somewhere outside the states. If you look everywhere else the price is still close to $900. Take newegg for example. $879
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113347


9xxx procs are just binned pieces of Piledriver junk only for enthusiast overclockers, the 8350 remains the top of the line.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> 9xxx procs are just binned pieces of Piledriver junk only for enthusiast overclockers, the 8350 remains the top of the line.


I'd argue that most enthusiast wouldn't buy 9xxx because they are already overclocked as far as they are. Kind of takes the challenge out of it. The exception here would be people overclocking with ln2 but I consider those people beyond enthusiast. More like extremist.

Also, Id argue that even though they are just binned fx-8350's they are the top of the line. They are a different sku, just like an FX-8320 is a different sku to a FX-8350. By your logic a FX-8320 should be considered the top of the line. At the end of the day an FX-9590 is the top of the line as it is the highest silicon quality you can buy on AM3+.

I'm not defending the FX-9xxx series processors because I would rather they didn't exist at their price point. I'm just defending logic as your comment was illogical.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I'd argue that most enthusiast wouldn't buy 9xxx because they are already overclocked as far as they are. Kind of takes the challenge out of it. The exception here would be people overclocking with ln2 but I consider those people beyond enthusiast. More like extremist.


No one on hwbot has benched a 9590.

http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/fx_9590/

Ought to tell you how much it appeals to extreme OCers...


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> No one on hwbot has benched a 9590.
> 
> http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/fx_9590/
> 
> Ought to tell you how much it appeals to extreme OCers...


Who in hell can afford it??? I would not even consider buying one unless it was for under $250 US. The rumors I hear say unless you use LN2 it doesn't overclock well on water. It is not easy to get a 5.1 GHZ overclock on it. Of course I do NOT mean turbo. That is pure deception on AMD's part . it is a 4.7 GHZ cpu NOT 5.0 GHZ.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Opeterons being quad channel proves your ignorance on the subject of memory channels.
> 
> There is no need for quad channel as dual channel is barely saturated in consumer systems, which is why even the 3770K is a dual channel chip and it doesn't affect the performance of the ship negatively. Triple and quad channel serve no real purpose other than benchmark numbers. It's the technology in the chips that matters, which is why the 3960K has higher performance, despite being lower clocked than some other Intel chips.


Opeterons are also a much larger chip with a much larger TDP then anything a mobile consumer wants/needs, I suggest you go back and read my post until you understand the point I was making, before you go jumping down my throat, basically re-iterating everything I have already said.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I'd argue that most enthusiast wouldn't buy 9xxx because they are already overclocked as far as they are. Kind of takes the challenge out of it. The exception here would be people overclocking with ln2 but I consider those people beyond enthusiast. More like extremist.
> 
> Also, Id argue that even though they are just binned fx-8350's they are the top of the line. They are a different sku, just like an FX-8320 is a different sku to a FX-8350. By your logic a FX-8320 should be considered the top of the line. At the end of the day an FX-9590 is the top of the line as it is the highest silicon quality you can buy on AM3+.
> 
> I'm not defending the FX-9xxx series processors because I would rather they didn't exist at their price point. I'm just defending logic as your comment was illogical.


http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/318/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8350_vs_AMD_FX-Series_FX-9590.html
Only a higher clock it is almost as idiotic as people paying 40 dollar extra for a bios flash on a reference design graphics card









But yeah in a way you're right they are the same.
The point that differs here is that that 500 extra MHz and the binning it comes with gives more certainty of a well binned proc while actually only costing a few 10s extra.


----------



## Castaa

I find it difficult to believe people aren't accepting that SR isn't happening for AM3+. We already know the APU codename for excavator for crying out loud, shipping 2015 no less. Two difference stories using different sources about leaded roadmaps and no information of any kind about AM3+.

Denial meet a river in Egypt.

AM3+ is dead.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Link us to your source, so we can look at the source code as well.


AGESA code is here up until Kabini, Kaveri is under NDA
http://review.coreboot.org/gitweb?p=coreboot.git;a=tree;f=src/vendorcode/amd/agesa;h=4c893cb6e5776e389984ad8073b8796df102099a;hb=HEAD


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> AGESA code is here up until Kabini, Kaveri is under NDA
> http://review.coreboot.org/gitweb?p=coreboot.git;a=tree;f=src/vendorcode/amd/agesa;h=4c893cb6e5776e389984ad8073b8796df102099a;hb=HEAD


I've already looked, and the source code for the IMC hasn't seemed to of changed since revision f12 (Llano). Can you link the actual source file you found said information in?


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Anybody know of some information or benchmarks, that shows that the FX-9xxx is worth the money?







I haven't much knowledge of it other than it's higher clock. But is that really all they did to it, or is there something else that they have put into it that justifies it's high price?


----------



## agrims

Soo, with Kaveri, the boards look rather promising. The ASRock Extreme 6 is looking like its going to be a powerhouse. 8+2 digi VRM, and PCI 3.0 with a Kaveri chip.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> Soo, with Kaveri, the boards look rather promising. The ASRock Extreme 6 is looking like its going to be a powerhouse. 8+2 digi VRM, and PCI 3.0 with a Kaveri chip.










I really hope ASUS sees the path that AMD is choosing and comes out with an ROG board for the APU's, I think I will be purchasing an Kaveri they choose to do so. I am excited for this, but at the same time angered







. When will AMD finally get on track? But then again, there is only so much I know about the business aspect, I know, and AMD surely knows what needs to be done, but can it be achieved? Are the delays due to backlog by GloFo/TSMC, or is it just poor management?


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> Soo, with Kaveri, the boards look rather promising. The ASRock Extreme 6 is looking like its going to be a powerhouse. 8+2 digi VRM, and PCI 3.0 with a Kaveri chip.


Yea, I own the FM2 Extreme6 and it packs the same 8+2 phase digi VRM. I can do 5.3 GHz on my A10-6800k at 1.55v not stable. I am willing to bet I could hit 5.5 GHz with this board stable once above 1.65v, I just don't have the goodies in my pants to actually do it.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I really hope ASUS sees the path that AMD is choosing and comes out with an ROG board for the APU's, I think I will be purchasing an Kaveri they choose to do so. I am excited for this, but at the same time angered
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . When will AMD finally get on track? But then again, there is only so much I know about the business aspect, I know, and AMD surely knows what needs to be done, but can it be achieved? Are the delays due to backlog by GloFo/TSMC, or is it just poor management?


Well AMD is using the term "high performance core" a lot in their statements. If the leaked benchmarks of the ES chip are true, we are already seeing 36% gains in performance on certain aspects of the core. Will AMD get it right with Steamroller? Just maybe. And there is no delays with Kaveri, they ship 2013 and are available on shelf in Q1 2014 as expected.


----------



## btupsx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> I find it difficult to believe people aren't accepting that SR isn't happening for AM3+. We already know the APU codename for excavator for crying out loud, shipping 2015 no less. Two difference stories using different sources about leaded roadmaps and no information of any kind about AM3+.
> 
> Denial meet a river in Egypt.
> 
> AM3+ is dead.


The more time that goes by, the more I agree with your point of view. I think AMD fully intentioned to spin out one more release on AM3+, but they've discovered it makes poor business sense to do so. According to Digitimes, by the end of the year, AM3+ will account for 30% of their processor sales, while FM2/+ accounts for more than double this figure. It doesn't make sound financial sense to release even one more CPU generation on AM3+, when the majority of your CPU market share is found in an APU socket, and when your company vision is bound to APU technologies. I would love if SR was able to make it into AM3+ guise, but I'm not expecting it to happen. It makes more sense, both logically and financially, for AMD to just focus on FM2+. Maybe they will release a SR APU where you can disable the iGPU, OC it, etc? Stand alone CPU's will eventually be going the way of the math co-processor anyway; a digital relic of sorts.


----------



## Seronx

I didn't know Hudson D4 had native USB 3.0 support. ASRock A88X using the Realtek ALC1150 is pretty nice.


----------



## MrJava

I agree, steamroller for AM3+ is extremely unlikely.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> I find it difficult to believe people aren't accepting that SR isn't happening for AM3+. We already know the APU codename for excavator for crying out loud, shipping 2015 no less. Two difference stories using different sources about leaded roadmaps and no information of any kind about AM3+.
> 
> Denial meet a river in Egypt.
> 
> AM3+ is dead.


----------



## Seronx

OrochiRevE

Will be on AM3+ and will have 12 cores.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *btupsx*
> 
> The more time that goes by, the more I agree with your point of view. I think AMD fully intentioned to spin out one more release on AM3+, but they've discovered it makes poor business sense to do so. According to Digitimes, by the end of the year, AM3+ will account for 30% of their processor sales, while FM2/+ accounts for more than double this figure. It doesn't make sound financial sense to release even one more CPU generation on AM3+, when the majority of your CPU market share is found in an APU socket, and when your company vision is bound to APU technologies. I would love if SR was able to make it into AM3+ guise, but I'm not expecting it to happen. It makes more sense, both logically and financially, for AMD to just focus on FM2+. Maybe they will release a SR APU where you can disable the iGPU, OC it, etc? Stand alone CPU's will eventually be going the way of the math co-processor anyway; a digital relic of sorts.


AM3+ is NOT dead. AM3 is dead. That is what Digi Times said and I have found it is accurate. There will be at least one more offering for AM3+. What offering I do not know.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> OrochiRevE
> 
> Will be on AM3+ and will have 12 cores.


Is that a Vishera technology as far as core development? Or does it have some improvements in core design? What improvements?? TDP???


----------



## piledragon

well, what ever it is, i'll be glad if it does come out... that will mean that if i do upgrade to whatever comes out , i would have gone through three generations on one motherboard, and that good enough for me.

i happen to think that amd has something up their sleeve, but time will tell

Quote:


> Is that a Vishera technology as far as core development? Or does it have some improvements in core design? What improvements?? TDP???


hopefully both


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> OrochiRevE
> 
> Will be on AM3+ and will have 12 cores.


I want to believe but what happened to RevC and RevD? Are you saying AMD will sell Warsaw chips for AM3+? Do not mess with me, that would be a dream come true.

My thoughts on AM3+ dying are that AMD released 220w CPUs and made motherboard manufacturers adapt. But why? So they could force mother board manufacturers to update their boards for a niche product hardly anyone is buying before the platform is phased out?

IMO AMD is getting people and motherboard manufacturers ready for some sort of beastly chip that is expensive. As I've mentioned before, FX 9590 is a "price conditioning" chip, just like Titan was. Very over priced and not worth the money, but when something comes out later for more than the previous high end but is cheaper than the price conditioning product, it looks much better.

GTX 780 would have people rolling over angry for $650 high end GPUs. Instead people turned around and went, "wow, a Titan LE for $650! THATS AWESOME!!!"

If AMD released a successor to FX 9590 that was cheaper and faster, the successor would look pretty awesome compared to FX 9590, even at $400. Compare that to FX 8350 at $200 and then doubling in price for high end, and then everyone is mad that AMD's "high end" doubled in price. With FX 9590, a $400 AMD CPU would now be "something much faster than $900 FX 9590 at less than half the price", which sounds way better than "AMD high end doubles in price!"

Also, as I said at S|A today, AMD can not fit a solid GPU and CPU in even a 220w socket. A high end GPU can be 250w+. How can AMD fit 250w GPU with 130w CPU in a single socket?

They simply can't. They will still need a CPU + HSA GPU solution if they want to do more than sell $150 APUs for the rest of AMD's life. Not to mention, as I said at S|A, GPGPU is only good for float. What will AMD do for multi-thread integer workloads? Just tell people to pound sand?

AMD already is trying to squeeze their way into professional market (FirePros in Mac Pro, OpenCL Adobe, etc). No way will any APU come remotely close in performance to one or two Tahitis in GPGPU for years. But by then a big GPU would still destroy it.

I think AMD will stay mum about things and then release a large upgrade. Perhaps new platform with DDR4 and HTX/PCIe slots where HTX can be used with AMD GPUs to enable HSA features. Now their high end platform is big AMD CPU, AMD GPU accelerator for HSA, AMD GPU for graphics rendering.

Imagine that cash involved in that, why would AMD toss this aside? Specially when CUDA is dying and people are running from it? And that PhysX is pretty dead end unless Nvidia gets it to run on GCN for consoles. Do you see that happening? Nvidia will throw tons of money at companies for PC PhysX exclusive far before they bite the bullet on that one.

FX CPUs are 30% of their sales from recent news. AMD's server market share is abysmal, less than 5%. If AMD is going to continue in such a weak market with updated products, why do you think they're going to drop their basically second largest CPU market outside of APUs?

APU might be 5x faster than just CPU, but it's still a mid-range GPU. Nvidia can come along, make a monster 500mm^2+ die for GPGPU that's good at OpenCL and then scoff at most of AMD's APUs. Meanwhile AMD sells APUs for $150 tops and Nvidia sells Quadros for thousands of dollars.

Why would AMD do this to themselves? They are touting HSA as the future, not APUs. There will be higher end HSA solutions than APUs, I do feel that AMD is starting from the cheaper price point and working their way up, however. It is much easier to get people to buy HSA gear under the guise of "cheap gaming computer" as opposed to "please buy this FirePro for $1500, HSA is coming soon for it, we swear"

Also, on Tom' someone contacted Roy or something at AMD about FX, and the response was "keep the faith", not "i can't say anything" or whatever, but a positive response that doesn't confirm anything.

So overall, APU only strategy is missing a few points:

1. Mid-range at best for anything because of power and heat constraints of a single chip

2. AMD completely discarding multi-threaded integer workloads

3. Throwing loyal customers who like FX 8000 for whatever reason under the bus while they wait for HSA applications to replace what exists

APU only future is not feasible, AMD needs big CPU + big dGPU to compete with Quadro, Phi, etc.


----------



## Papadope

@sdlvx

I think you hit the nail on the head.
I don't think we've seen the end of AMD in the big core market. However, Like you mentioned it may be the end of the line for AM3+ if they can't launch Steamroller fx within 2014 because of globofo yield issues. (If they even exist, I haven't heard anything official about it). Now the alternative is something is coming and they are being extremely tight lipped about it. If that's the case why would they do this?

Edit: Especially when there has been so many "leaks" lately of other AMD products that have been confirmed.


----------



## Seronx

There won't be a Steamroller FX, the FX line is skipping it for Excavator. The FX instead of Steamroller will have an increase of Piledriver cores with 32nm HDLs.

1190FX/SB1150(same southbridge that will be in the A95X chipsets)/AM3+


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> OrochiRevE
> 
> Will be on AM3+ and will have 12 cores.


Revision E would seem to signify a 5th revision of the Orochi architecture (Module style starting with Bulldozer) would it not? BDVer1 is Bulldozer, bdver2 is Piledriver, bdver3 is Steamroller, next up is Excavator, seems strange for you to somehow know what version 5 would be.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> AM3+ is NOT dead. AM3 is dead. That is what Digi Times said and I have found it is accurate. There will be at least one more offering for AM3+. What offering I do not know.


AM3+ should begin being phased out right now. The platform has served its purpose supporting the Athlon II, Phenom II, and two generations of FX processors. The only reason its not dead is because of there being no official word. People assume its dead because AMD has no future plans for the platform. Tho without word from AMD stating the platform is dead, people also assume its still a thriving platform. The AM3+ platform is outdated and even way behind the FM2 platform. So I personally don't expect any new FX processors until AMD comes up with a new platform. Which I doubt you will see until at least 2015 with Excavator. As there isn't even any word any new chipsets, let alone motherboard manufacture's building boards for said chipset. At most you may see a Vishera refresh for AM3+, tho I have my doubts (FX-9590/FX-9370).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There won't be a Steamroller FX, the FX line is skipping it for Excavator. The FX instead of Steamroller will have an increase of Piledriver cores with 32nm HDLs.
> 
> 1190FX/Hudson-D5(SB1150)/AM3+


The 1090FX(1070) [SB1060] chipset would be next in line, which gives a bump to 990FX with native USB 3.0 and more SATA3 ports. Tho it still lacks PCIe 3.0 and several other features now found with the FM2+ platform. Even if AMD does deliver a Steamroller based FX processor, the platform for it may be a joke compared to what FM2+ offers. I have my doubts of a 12 core Vishera's as well, as that wouldn't benefit AMD much in any situation. They would be carrying on the same regime as they have been with trying to make up lack of performance with a ridiculous amount of slow cores.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The AM3+ platform is outdated and even way behind the FM2 platform.


I see people say this, but what is the deficiency that AM3+ cannot do but the FM2 platform is somehow able to? Both have PCI-E 2.0 which comes from the CPU and additional lanes with chipset upgrades, both have dual channel memory, both have full IO stuff with USB3 support and such and more can be added with new chipset, both can have integrated graphics, both have SATA6, both can support high power CPUs. So where is the deficiency that FM2 is able to solve but AM3 cant?


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I see people say this, but what is the deficiency that AM3+ cannot do but the FM2 platform is somehow able to? Both have PCI-E 2.0 which comes from the CPU and additional lanes with chipset upgrades, both have dual channel memory, both have full IO stuff with USB3 support and such and more can be added with new chipset, both can have integrated graphics, both have SATA6, both can support high power CPUs. So where is the deficiency that FM2 is able to solve but AM3 cant?


The fact that the north bridge has been already moved to the CPU. Points out how dated the platform and processors are. It's not just a lack in features, but also a lack in incorporating technologies. The 990FX chipset indeed does not support native USB 3.0 on its own, that is done with a separate controller on the motherboard. Not to mention FM2 now has PCI Express 3.0 and up to eight SATA3 ports. With added support for RAID 5, RAID 10, and JBOD. The APU platform is getting stronger as AMD's "enthusiast" platform just sits and collects dust. I don't think anyone will disagree against it being an outdated platform.


----------



## Papadope

I wouldn't argue it but I also wouldn't say its terribly deficient. It is still capable even though it may be lacking some features natively, it still supports said features. No reason to axe the whole platform over that when steamroller fx is totally viable from a selling point of view.

FM2+ boards sure are looking nice though









Edit: I'm just curious, what is the advantage of having the north bridge integrated into the CPU? Is it simply a reduction in cost for the motherboard or is their a performance benefit as well? I would assume their would be a small reduction in power consumption?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The AM3+ platform is outdated and even way behind the FM2 platform.
> 
> 
> 
> I see people say this, but what is the deficiency that AM3+ cannot do but the FM2 platform is somehow able to? Both have PCI-E 2.0 which comes from the CPU and additional lanes with chipset upgrades, both have dual channel memory, both have full IO stuff with USB3 support and such and more can be added with new chipset, both can have integrated graphics, both have SATA6, both can support high power CPUs. So where is the deficiency that FM2 is able to solve but AM3 cant?
Click to expand...

AM3+ is fine. It needs a new chipset maybe but the pins and socket are fine.

The same kind of people who say AM3+ sucks are the same people who think PCIe3.0 makes a huge difference and that buy mainstream Intel platform over LGA2011, because LGA2011 uses PCIe2.0.

Seronx I do not understand, are you implying a 6 module single die chip? So the good chips that are fully enabled will actually be the 6m/12c ones while the 8m/16c are two 6 module parts with modules disabled? Why is there no 24 core then? Just not worth it to put two 6 module CPUs on a single socket?

I do guess that explains why there is no 8 core chips floating around. Instead of selling chips that need modules disabled as FX 6000 or FX 4000, they could just put them on an MCM package and charge even more for them than the good chips that have full working modules.

It does make a lot of sense I suppose. A big chip like that at a high frequency would use a lot of power. I realize this is sloppy math and I"m just going to call it a very rough estimate, but FX 8350 is 130w part. So 50% more cores, 50% more TDP = 195w.

So perhaps FX 9590 is AMD's way of getting motherboard manufacturers to get ready for a 200w CPU that is actually good.

It would be a marketing win for AMD. They would finally be able to compete on the "high end" with Intel hex core. It would trade blows in multithread with IB-E hex, while being behind in single. So, assuming pricing continues onward I wouldn't be surprised if we saw 6m/12c "entry" level (like 3930k) at around $400 and some sort of extreme edition at $800 or so.

It would look like a fantastic value next to Intel EE and FX 9590 and it would allow AMD to make some good profits on FX chips. People would be price conditioned and AMD could throw in the tin box and shut up the guys who cry about the boxes they're going to throw away on youtube.

I do not know how much something like that would sway people. It would be a nice halo product for AMD even if they didn't sell too many. It'd have a huge advantage over mainstream Intel quads in multi-thread. Perhaps it would finally get some people who go "AMD SUX THEY CANT COMPETE ON THE HIGH END!!!" to shut up.

If they use HDL the die size might not get that much bigger, meaning they could sell it for cheaper while still making a good profit. 3930k die size about 440mm^2, so if AMD could match it in multi-thread with a smaller die, they'd be in really good shape for those who need integer crunching CPUs and multi-thread. Even if AMD brought in 6m Piledriver at 400mm^2 and it tied 3930k in multi-thread and sold at around $400 it would be a really good value for those who need that multi-thread performance.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Steamroller-High_Density_Libraries-hot-chips-cpu-gpu,17218.html

AMD says 30% die size reduction. Meaning that we'd see 4 module unit at (roughly) 220m^2 and 6 module unit at 330mm^2.

(in case you are wondering about the math, I applied 30% reduction to 315mm die size which gave me 220mm, then multiplied that by 1.5 to simulate adding 50% more cores. Yes I know it's not exact but it's a very rough estimate, I do know I'm not accounting for things).

So realistically AMD could sell this 6m/12c chip for about the same price as FX 8350 goes for right now. Meaning if we got super lucky we could see AMD give us 3930k-like multi-thread for $200.

However I would see them charging more. AMD's margins on a 315mm^2 chip at $200 can not be very good at all. For reference, Intel Haswell Quad with GT2 is about 177mm^2.

Maybe we'd see FX 8000 series replace FX 6000 series and then this 6m/12c chip replace FX 8000?

You really got my mind going Seronx. I had hopes for a Steamroller upgrade, but to be honest, 50% more cores is a heck of a lot better than 20% more IPC and the same amount of cores, at least if you're big on multi-threaded work, which I am.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There won't be a Steamroller FX, the FX line is skipping it for Excavator. The FX instead of Steamroller will have an increase of Piledriver cores with 32nm HDLs.
> 
> 1190FX/SB1150(same southbridge that will be in the A95X chipsets)/AM3+


This is my thoughts on it, i think they knew it was going to be super super late, so they just moved onto the one afterwards in an attempt to get it out earlier than the mid 2015 they were originally aiming for


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I wouldn't argue it but I also wouldn't say its terribly deficient. It is still capable even though it may be lacking some features natively, it still supports said features. No reason to axe the whole platform over that when steamroller fx is totally viable from a selling point of view.
> 
> FM2+ boards sure are looking nice though


Steamroller FX is and always will be a possibility. Tho I don't think it will ever happen, not because AM3+ cant support it or that building a Steamroller based FX chip isn't possible. I think its more over the direction that AMD is trying to take with their company. Lets also not forget Berlin and Beema, are expected to be released in early 2014 as well. Berlin is to replace the Opteron 3300 line of server processors. While Beema is to replace Kabini APU's. Warsaw will come around the same time and bring 12/16 core Piledriver server processors. Which is only a minor update to the current eight-core Opteron silicon. I think this is why Seronx expects 12 core FX processors. Tho I have my doubts the server -> desktop migration will happen this time around. I personally feel that AMD is pushing to be a APU only company towards consumers during 2014.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There won't be a Steamroller FX, the FX line is skipping it for Excavator. The FX instead of Steamroller will have an increase of Piledriver cores with 32nm HDLs.
> 
> 1190FX/SB1150(same southbridge that will be in the A95X chipsets)/AM3+


Be clear. Are you stating you believe there will be an FX Excavator lineup? That would be on FM2+ or AM4??? I assume if you are saying an FX Excavator product line that it will have large cores ( at least 6 to 8).


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There won't be a Steamroller FX, the FX line is skipping it for Excavator. The FX instead of Steamroller will have an increase of Piledriver cores with 32nm HDLs.
> 
> 1190FX/SB1150(same southbridge that will be in the A95X chipsets)/AM3+
> 
> 
> 
> Be clear. Are you stating you believe there will be an FX Excavator lineup? That would be on FM2+ or AM4??? I assume if you are saying an FX Excavator product line that it will have large cores ( at least 6 to 8).
Click to expand...

os2 did you read my posts? AMD can not replace a big CPU with a big dGPU like Tahiti with any sort of APU. The TDP would be like 400w for a single chip.

I also explained how 6m/12c Piledriver on 32nm with HDL would only be 15mm^2 larger than FX 8350 dies. I think it makes sense for AMD to do this, specially since APU GPGPU is only good for floats and not integers, and Bulldozer modular design is very good for integer.

I do not think AMD can actually replace a high end CPU with high end GPU with an APU.


----------



## Papadope

Why release 6m/12c Piledriver on 32nm though? Why not use steamroller cores on 28?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> os2 did you read my posts? AMD can not replace a big CPU with a big dGPU like Tahiti with any sort of APU. The TDP would be like 400w for a single chip.
> 
> I also explained how 6m/12c Piledriver on 32nm with HDL would only be 15mm^2 larger than FX 8350 dies. I think it makes sense for AMD to do this, specially since APU GPGPU is only good for floats and not integers, and Bulldozer modular design is very good for integer.
> 
> I do not think AMD can actually replace a high end CPU with high end GPU with an APU.


I think you have a big misconception. The apu is not for high end graphics. It is for mainstream graphics. You want highend graphics you add a discreet card. A six or preferably 8 core excavator apu is totally feasible for size of die on 22nm process while tdp could be about 85 watts. Where you got the notion that the graphics core in the apu was to be high end, I do not know. It also aids in HSA.


----------



## Konbad

speaking of which if they were to have a 8core Fully fleshed out CPU with a discreet spec GPU in there which is probably where they are wanting to go, im sure it would be awesome especially with crossfire with any of they current generation (9XXX onwards) cards that would be awesome. crossfire on a basic hardware level would be awesome as well


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> os2 did you read my posts? AMD can not replace a big CPU with a big dGPU like Tahiti with any sort of APU. The TDP would be like 400w for a single chip.
> 
> I also explained how 6m/12c Piledriver on 32nm with HDL would only be 15mm^2 larger than FX 8350 dies. I think it makes sense for AMD to do this, specially since APU GPGPU is only good for floats and not integers, and Bulldozer modular design is very good for integer.
> 
> I do not think AMD can actually replace a high end CPU with high end GPU with an APU.
> 
> 
> 
> I think you have a big misconception. The apu is not for high end graphics. It is for mainstream graphics. You want highend graphics you add a discreet card. A six or preferably 8 core excavator apu is totally feasible for size of die on 22nm process while tdp could be about 85 watts. Where you got the notion that the graphics core in the apu was to be high end, I do not know. It also aids in HSA.
Click to expand...

No, the point of APU is to do GPGPU workloads (physics calculations, rendering, video transcoding, etc) that are heavily threaded. The decent gaming performance in a small package is just to get hardware adoption up.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/164817-setting-hsail-amd-cpu-gpu-cooperation

I think you are missing the real point of APUs. Yes they are great chips for gaming right now if you're on a budget but that's not the end goal. iGPUs have been around for a while and they aren't special, AMD's special sauce is going to be dumping GPGPU workloads seamlessly into the GPU whereas they would normally be done on the CPU. It is much like the idea of Xeon Phi, and I would argue that Phi is a copy-cat of HSA, but it is early and not done as well.

If you look at HSAIL there is nothing about APUs or whatever, it's all about getting CPUs and GPUs to work together better. There is nothing in these documents that state that you _can't_ have a system with 4 16 core Opterons in it and 4 dual GPU, big GPU cards in there. Right now PCIe is kind of a problem but there are ways around it and AMD has patents which would let them get around the issue of not enough bandwidth just fine (HTX and PCIe hybrid slots).

Hypertransport 3.1 already has more bandwidth than PCIe 3.0x16 slot and HT 3.1 came out in 2008. Hypertransport 4.0 would smoke PCIe3.0 x16, probably even PCIe 4.0. It is what is needed and it would probably warrant a platform upgrade, which may be why AMD has postponed or cancelled FX Steamroller.


----------



## btupsx

@sdlvx, awesome, awesome points man!!! Thank you for realizing that Xeon is a poorly developed "Emergency Edition" ripoff of HSA; I was beginning to think I was the only one. Everyone seems to miss the point that the possible phase out of AM3+ does not mean the imminent demise of FX. Why is there so much blow back about this? If you're AMD, why do you continue to sink money into an older socket (AM3+), for the sake of a small-ish part of your product portfolio? Why WOULDN'T you use common sense and just migrate everything over to FM2+? Sure you might tick off some AM3+ mobo owners such as myself, but if they integrate worthwhile features and tech into the next gen chips, wouldn't you be upgrading your board anyway? In the end, eventually APU's will be all there is; once the process shrinks get small enough, and the fab materials exotic enough, we will look back and think of the days of using a discrete GPU as silly, and quaint.


----------



## Papadope

I agree, I think the main cause for blow back on this is that we were expecting steamroller for AM3+. Even though it was never confirmed, I myself have been holding out for steamroller on AM3+. I bought my board and 1100T and planned on buying bulldozer before the debacle. Then I didn't purchase Piledriver because I didn't see enough of an improvement over my 1100T. So I was holding out for the real upgrade that I initially wanted when I purchased my AM3+ board.

Honestly I'm over it though, I don't really care at this point. The 1100T turned out to be a great chip especially once I got it overclocked to were it is now. I also wouldn't have learned nearly as much about overclocking if I would have just been able to drop in a faster bulldozer chip. So im not bitter about it and I'm looking forward to Steamroller in whatever form it comes out. We will see how much further this Thuban takes me, but if the consoles are anything to go by it's only going to get better now that games will support up to 6 threads on both PS3 and Xbox One.


----------



## btupsx

@papadope- I did the exact same as you, bought a Thuban, with plans to upgrade later, but I knew I would be skipping PD. I was banking on SR being the last hurrah on AM3+, but I won't be devastated if it's not. I *will* be pleasantly surprised if my upgrade path works out, but my Thuban has been great; if SR doesn't meet my expectations, might just keep on truckin as is.


----------



## MrJava

If there were a 6 module die slated for next year, then wouldn't there be a 12 module warsaw on the server roadmap (2 chip MCM)? Just a thought.
In any case, i think a 30-40% IPC increase would propel a 4 core steamroller ahead of all current AMD processors in most games.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *btupsx*
> 
> 
> 
> @sdlvx, awesome, awesome points man!!! Thank you for realizing that Xeon is a poorly developed "Emergency Edition" ripoff of HSA; I was beginning to think I was the only one. Everyone seems to miss the point that the possible phase out of AM3+ does not mean the imminent demise of FX. Why is there so much blow back about this? If you're AMD, why do you continue to sink money into an older socket (AM3+), for the sake of a small-ish part of your product portfolio? Why WOULDN'T you use common sense and just migrate everything over to FM2+? Sure you might tick off some AM3+ mobo owners such as myself, but if they integrate worthwhile features and tech into the next gen chips, wouldn't you be upgrading your board anyway? In the end, eventually APU's will be all there is; once the process shrinks get small enough, and the fab materials exotic enough, we will look back and think of the days of using a discrete GPU as silly, and quaint.


I have no issue about a motherboard change. My issue is a 4 core product. HSA adoption by software developers, no matter how easy, will NOT be immediate. I would give 2 years for most companies to adopt HSA in their applications. That means there has to be large core offerings for power users and enthusiasts until adoption is completed. 2 more years on piledriver is out of the question. There has to be something in early 2015 on FM2+ or whatever of a 6-8 core nature with newer architecture.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If there were a 6 module die slated for next year, then wouldn't there be a 12 module warsaw on the server roadmap (2 chip MCM)? Just a thought.
> In any case, i think a 30-40% IPC increase would propel a 4 core steamroller ahead of all current AMD processors in most games.


I was kind of thinking AMD would just MCM the duds that need modules disabled and sell them for a lot more. AMD has been eating a lot of profits selling 315mm^2 chips as FX 4000 and FX 6000 series.

I kind of think we will also see AMD sell the bad chips that have to have a module disabled as 4m/8c and maybe even 5m/10c.

FX 4000 series is kind of obsolete and if Steamroller quad will perform like FX 6300 then there is little reason for a 3m part to exist in the first place.

I kind of think we'll see APUs below $200, 4m/8c at $200, 5m/10c at like $300/$350, 6m/12c at $400+.

It's all conjecture but as I said before, there's only so much you can fit into a single socket when it comes to GPU and CPU. People went crazy when AMD released a 220w CPU, and a high end GPU can take more than that easily. Yet everyone complains about the CPU and not the GPU. Meanwhile people are expecting APU to replace dGPU completely. I don't see how one chip that's CPU+GPU and around 300mm^2 is ever going to replace a single GPU that's larger than it as well as a single CPU that's larger than it.

Part of HSA is getting professionals to use AMD's platform. Meaning they will need a professional dGPU and a powerful CPU. However another reason why they might be putting it off is that there's not enough HSA and OpenCL applications out there to justify switching to an Operon/FirePro workstation.


----------



## agrims

I believe HSA for games is already here... If it wasn't the PS4 would be mute as it is confirmed that it uses HSA.. Also Adobe is already working with HSA compliance. HSA is something run through OpenCL, and many productivity suites already use OpenCL...

BTW, AMD has NEVER stated that the GPU will be for high end gaming. They want it for parallel processing, and secondary mainstream gaming, which is mostly mid level gaming and indie gaming.

Also, the current gen APU is able to crossfire so they are working out the kinks to crossfire with bigger dGPUs..


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I think you have a big misconception. The apu is not for high end graphics. It is for mainstream graphics. You want highend graphics you add a discreet card. A six or preferably 8 core excavator apu is totally feasible for size of die on 22nm process while tdp could be about 85 watts. Where you got the notion that the graphics core in the apu was to be high end, I do not know. It also aids in HSA.


you are not understanding that there is no need for an 8 core CPU with the APU design.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *btupsx*
> 
> 
> 
> @sdlvx, awesome, awesome points man!!! Thank you for realizing that Xeon is a poorly developed "Emergency Edition" ripoff of HSA; I was beginning to think I was the only one. Everyone seems to miss the point that the possible phase out of AM3+ does not mean the imminent demise of FX. Why is there so much blow back about this? If you're AMD, why do you continue to sink money into an older socket (AM3+), for the sake of a small-ish part of your product portfolio? Why WOULDN'T you use common sense and just migrate everything over to FM2+? Sure you might tick off some AM3+ mobo owners such as myself, but if they integrate worthwhile features and tech into the next gen chips, wouldn't you be upgrading your board anyway? In the end, eventually APU's will be all there is; once the process shrinks get small enough, and the fab materials exotic enough, we will look back and think of the days of using a discrete GPU as silly, and quaint.


Thank you! You have made the point I have been trying to make for a while! There is no reason for an 8 core CPU unless you are running VM's and Compiling code.


----------



## roofrider

A 12c PD for AM3+ in the coming year that performs at IB-E's level? I don't want that, it's good for those who need a workstation, it's good for AMD but absolutely useless for gaming, i know people here do more than just game but i don't think they are a majority. 8 cores are more than enough for me and most i believe.

I really don't think they are going to stick a Tahiti in an APU, Kaveri is only going to have a ~7750 iGPU in it. You're expecting there to be a Kaveri refresh towards the end of 2014 that has a ~7950 for an iGPU with Carrizo happening sometime in early to mid 2015? I'd expect Carrizo's iGPU to feature GCN 2.0.

How are they going to sell their dGPUs if they stick their high-end GPUs in APUs? Not everyone needs the performance of a Tahiti iGPU and a Tahiti discrete crossfire.

And yea, people do run VMs and compile code, i do that as a hobby and i believe 6/8 cores are optimum for that. Now, i don't know if this is going to be an APU or CPU only design but it would be nice to have a 6 core APU.
AMD has stated that they plan on moving to a unified socket in the future, if there a PD refresh happening next year then the unified socket will most probably be FM3 (or whatever, with DDR4 and other stuff) in 2015. Conjecturing of course.


----------



## Konbad

most new games will be designed to make use of 8 cores. its why i was hoping to see 1 more dedicated 8 core CPU on steamroller or excavator so that i could upgrade and then in 2 - 3 years time when its all working flawlessly upgrade again.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Anyone get the feeling that some for whatever stupid reason are trying to convince a wider audience that there will never be a Steamroller FX chip?


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Anyone get the feeling that some for whatever stupid reason are trying to convince a wider audience that there will never be a Steamroller FX chip?


Are you talking about SR _FX_ for AM3+ or FM2+? As a 6/8 core APU or as a 6/8 core CPU only part? Or as a 6/8 core variant like the x4 750K with the iGPU disabled for FM2+?
Did i cover everything?

No one said never. Based on the roadmaps we have at hand it is unlikely for there to be a SR FX for AM3+, if you want to know for certain you have to wait for the next updated roadmap.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> A 12c PD for AM3+ in the coming year that performs at IB-E's level? I don't want that, it's good for those who need a workstation, it's good for AMD but absolutely useless for gaming, i know people here do more than just game but i don't think they are a majority. 8 cores are more than enough for me and most i believe.
> 
> I really don't think they are going to stick a Tahiti in an APU, Kaveri is only going to have a ~7750 iGPU in it. You're expecting there to be a Kaveri refresh towards the end of 2014 that has a ~7950 for an iGPU with Carrizo happening sometime in early to mid 2015? I'd expect Carrizo's iGPU to feature GCN 2.0.
> 
> How are they going to sell their dGPUs if they stick their high-end GPUs in APUs? Not everyone needs the performance of a Tahiti iGPU and a Tahiti discrete crossfire.
> 
> And yea, people do run VMs and compile code, i do that as a hobby and i believe 6/8 cores are optimum for that. Now, i don't know if this is going to be an APU or CPU only design but it would be nice to have a 6 core APU.
> AMD has stated that they plan on moving to a unified socket in the future, if there a PD refresh happening next year then the unified socket will most probably be FM3 (or whatever, with DDR4 and other stuff) in 2015. Conjecturing of course.


Kaveri I believe will feature GCN 2.0, the iGPU in Kaveri is suppose to be Bonaire. Which is the same GCN core technology used in the HD 7790. So with 512 MADS, it's not going to perform like a 7750. It will perform more between the HD 7750 and the HD 7770. It seems logical because the 7790 has 896 GCN 2.0 cores, and the HD 7770 GHz has 512 GCN 1.0 cores. Meanwhile the 7790 consumes only 5W more power at the board while having 6 extra GCN units. This means it way more power efficient than GCN 1.0. They won't ever stick a high end discrete grade GPU into a APU. They may up to a certain level, but it would be a specialty chip designed for say ITX setups where Crossfire isn't possible any other way (my idea AMD). Tho I wouldn't expect to see a 7970 being built in a APU any time soon. The TDP of the chip would be absolutely insane. A six core APU seems more logical as die shrinks happen. Especially if AMD takes the blue pill and decides to go a APU only company. Then I am sure we will see a six core APU possibly with Excavator.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If there were a 6 module die slated for next year, then wouldn't there be a 12 module warsaw on the server roadmap (2 chip MCM)? Just a thought.
> In any case, i think a 30-40% IPC increase would propel a 4 core steamroller ahead of all current AMD processors in most games.


A 30% increase over Piledriver alone would put AMD up to par with Sandy Bridge core performance. A eight core 2500k alone would be certainly amazing, tho I think it could damage AMD's potential future sales. A chip that big and that powerful wouldn't need to be replaced for several more years to come. Especially as games are becoming optimized for existing eight core FX chips. I think this is why Intel hasn't done it yet either, because the current consumer software market doesn't need that much power. For example if Intel released a eight core 4770k for $450. People would buy it and they wouldn't replace it for the next 2-3 years at minimum. As software itself has a long way to go to exceed the capabilities of that many cores, with that much power. The goal for AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and others is to get people to upgrade every generation. Pretty much to keep the cash flowing. And that wouldn't happen with a $300 eight core Sandy Bridge.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> Are you talking about SR _FX_ for AM3+ or FM2+? As a 6/8 core APU or as a 6/8 core CPU only part? Or as a 6/8 core variant like the x4 750K with the iGPU disabled for FM2+?
> Did i cover everything?
> 
> No one said never. Based on the roadmaps we have at hand it is unlikely for there to be a SR FX for AM3+, if you want to know for certain you have to wait for the next updated roadmap.


An SR FX chip (with L3) is unlikely to be on AM3+ given that its going to be at least Q2 2014, so it will have DDR4, it probably going to be on AM4


----------



## Seronx

2014:
G34 => 12/16 PD cores with Quad-channel DDR3
C32 => 16 PD cores with Dual-channel DDR3
AM3+ => 12 PD cores with Dual-channel DDR3
FM2+/FM3 => 4 SR Cores with Dual-channel DDR3/Quad-channel DDR4(32-bit)

2015:
GC36 => 12/16/20 XV Cores with Quad-channel DDR4(64-bit)
FM2+/FM3 => 4 XV Cores with Dual-channel DDR3/Quad-channel DDR4(32-bit)

2016:
GC36 => 24/32/40 BDN Cores with Quad-channel DDR4(64-bit)
HM1 => 8/16 BDN Cores with Hexa-channel DDR4(32-bit?)


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Anyone get the feeling that some for whatever stupid reason are trying to convince a wider audience that there will never be a Steamroller FX chip?


Kind of like how there were tons of people screaming "28nm TSMC WILL NEVER BE READY UNTIL LATE 2012!!!" and then 7970 released in January 2012?

People are always spreading FUD about AMD. I have no idea if people just genuinely feel that way or if it's folks working for Intel PIE or something, but before AMD releases something good there's nearly always some sort of strong FUD campaign to make AMD look horrible and to make people question what AMD will be doing in the future.

Now we hear "22nm IS SO FAR AWAY!!" and IBM is making 22nm SOI chips _right now_.

If AMD can fit 12 cores on a 330mm^2 die there's no reason why they shouldn't release one. The margins would be a lot better and they could sell semi-disabled chips as 8 cores and 10 cores. It also would mean AMD could compete on the high end. The only thing really separating 4670k and 3970x is multi-thread performance and Intel is leaving a huge price gap between $340 4770k and $570 3930k where AMD could completely run amok and own the market.

AMD needs to shake the budget and value ONLY image they've built. People who got into CPUs after Bulldozer only know AMD as making good chips in the lower price segments. You can pick some of these Intel fanboys out because they make horrible claims like "AMD has never ever competed with Intel in performance" or whatever, when clearly they have many years ago.

Not everything is going to be able to use HSA right away, and if AMD has no high end traditional parts then people who are stuck between having some HSA enabled apps and some not are going to have to choose between doing some things very fast and some things very slow or finding a middle ground.

Not to mention I think a lot of people are neglecting how much faster an x86 core is going to be when instructions are targeted on a specific platform where every CPU is the same as opposed to targeting several different CPUs with several different instructions sets on PC.

Let me put some of this into perspective for you from my Gentoo benchmarking on FX 8350.



I saw a little over 60% speedup encoding the same wav file to mp3 with the same settings using optimized LAME in Gentoo as opposed to the default one from the website in Windows.

That puts stock FX 8350 faster _at stock_ than 3770k in LAME, which has been a benchmark that's been a thorn in the side of FX 8350 owners forever.

8 Jaguar cores at 2.0ghz using AVX, per my testing, would put it roughly at the same level of performance as FX 8350 at 4ghz assuming that Jaguar is getting optimized code and FX is getting generic Windows code.

It all really just depends on how much the OS on the consoles need and if it can suspend itself or something. But regardless, I could easily see a Jaguar running optimized code with all the instructions giving an FX 8350 a difficult time provided all cores are loaded and FX is running generic code relying on x87 or SSE1.

I do think you guys are missing that 10 cores might actually be the norm if you want to play next gen console ports and stream or multi-task or whatever it is FX 8000 owners like to do on their gaming rigs.

People have gotten awfully complacent with getting console ports designed to run on, at best, 3 general purpose cores and an x1900. As I was typing this I had to look back and realize that I bought this 7970 in _2012_ and I still play every game I want to on full settings at 1440p. I think a lot of people are used to this by now, and I remember in the early 00s going through CPU upgrades every year, at least, and new motherboards every other year or so. Not to mention graphic card upgrades constantly.

The new consoles are going to change things and it is going to put a lot of hurt on existing rigs, and I have a really good feeling that, given the new mentality of people as well as their complacency with not having to upgrade, are going to blame the game for being "bloated" and "slow" as opposed to realizing that the demands of games have simply gone up.

I have no idea when this attitude showed up in enthusiasts but it's alive and well, and I don't like it. I first noticed it in Vista, where we got a nice, 3d composited desktop and all sorts of caching and such, and everyone whined because it used more resources than Windows XP without a 3d desktop and all that other stuff.

But it's the central problem with the desktop community and why sales are down. People would much rather blame the software engineer for making more demanding software as opposed to upgrading. And now software engineers are targeting lower end hardware and aiming for efficiency instead of effects and visually pleasing things (why do you think Metro looks so bland? It's because it's not demanding and no one will complain that the 3d shadows on tiles are lagging their ancient GPU).

A lot of desktop users have dug their grave and they won't admit it, they just want to continue to point fingers at casual users or Intel or AMD for not making anything better. People don't need to upgrade from Nehalem or Phenom still and it's because software stopped growing overly demanding.

I do think that's going to change with next gen consoles and 10 cores will actually be reasonable, but everyone will go kicking and screaming and blaming software devs for bloat and whatever.

And just for the record, ever since the 00s I've always advocated more than what people thought they needed, and it came.

I wanted a dual CPU rig in the early 00s, and people laughed at me. Now you get laughed at if you have a single core.

I had 1.5GB of ram when everyone had 512MB and people laughed, now you laugh at 1.5GB

I had 4ghz Pentium 4 and everyone said "lol why do you need that much power?" and now we have ULV chips that would humiliate 4ghz Netburst

I had nearly 3ghz Opteron 165 and everyone laughed and said it was too much

Then I had 4ghz i7 920 and everyone said it was too much.

I simply don't understand why people have always been so opposed to going so far with hardware. Everytime people say "lol ur dum u dont need dat!" and then 3 years later everyone is using that.

We're already at a point where 8 cores can be practical for streaming + gaming, and that's running console ports designed to run on ancient hardware.


----------



## istudy92

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Kind of like how there were tons of people screaming "28nm TSMC WILL NEVER BE READY UNTIL LATE 2012!!!" and then 7970 released in January 2012?
> 
> People are always spreading FUD about AMD. I have no idea if people just genuinely feel that way or if it's folks working for Intel PIE or something, but before AMD releases something good there's nearly always some sort of strong FUD campaign to make AMD look horrible and to make people question what AMD will be doing in the future.
> 
> Now we hear "22nm IS SO FAR AWAY!!" and IBM is making 22nm SOI chips _right now_.
> 
> If AMD can fit 12 cores on a 330mm^2 die there's no reason why they shouldn't release one. The margins would be a lot better and they could sell semi-disabled chips as 8 cores and 10 cores. It also would mean AMD could compete on the high end. The only thing really separating 4670k and 3970x is multi-thread performance and Intel is leaving a huge price gap between $340 4770k and $570 3930k where AMD could completely run amok and own the market.
> 
> AMD needs to shake the budget and value ONLY image they've built. People who got into CPUs after Bulldozer only know AMD as making good chips in the lower price segments. You can pick some of these Intel fanboys out because they make horrible claims like "AMD has never ever competed with Intel in performance" or whatever, when clearly they have many years ago.
> 
> Not everything is going to be able to use HSA right away, and if AMD has no high end traditional parts then people who are stuck between having some HSA enabled apps and some not are going to have to choose between doing some things very fast and some things very slow or finding a middle ground.
> 
> Not to mention I think a lot of people are neglecting how much faster an x86 core is going to be when instructions are targeted on a specific platform where every CPU is the same as opposed to targeting several different CPUs with several different instructions sets on PC.
> 
> Let me put some of this into perspective for you from my Gentoo benchmarking on FX 8350.
> 
> 
> 
> I saw a little over 60% speedup encoding the same wav file to mp3 with the same settings using optimized LAME in Gentoo as opposed to the default one from the website in Windows.
> 
> That puts stock FX 8350 faster _at stock_ than 3770k in LAME, which has been a benchmark that's been a thorn in the side of FX 8350 owners forever.
> 
> 8 Jaguar cores at 2.0ghz using AVX, per my testing, would put it roughly at the same level of performance as FX 8350 at 4ghz assuming that Jaguar is getting optimized code and FX is getting generic Windows code.
> 
> It all really just depends on how much the OS on the consoles need and if it can suspend itself or something. But regardless, I could easily see a Jaguar running optimized code with all the instructions giving an FX 8350 a difficult time provided all cores are loaded and FX is running generic code relying on x87 or SSE1.
> 
> I do think you guys are missing that 10 cores might actually be the norm if you want to play next gen console ports and stream or multi-task or whatever it is FX 8000 owners like to do on their gaming rigs.
> 
> People have gotten awfully complacent with getting console ports designed to run on, at best, 3 general purpose cores and an x1900. As I was typing this I had to look back and realize that I bought this 7970 in _2012_ and I still play every game I want to on full settings at 1440p. I think a lot of people are used to this by now, and I remember in the early 00s going through CPU upgrades every year, at least, and new motherboards every other year or so. Not to mention graphic card upgrades constantly.
> 
> The new consoles are going to change things and it is going to put a lot of hurt on existing rigs, and I have a really good feeling that, given the new mentality of people as well as their complacency with not having to upgrade, are going to blame the game for being "bloated" and "slow" as opposed to realizing that the demands of games have simply gone up.
> 
> I have no idea when this attitude showed up in enthusiasts but it's alive and well, and I don't like it. I first noticed it in Vista, where we got a nice, 3d composited desktop and all sorts of caching and such, and everyone whined because it used more resources than Windows XP without a 3d desktop and all that other stuff.
> 
> But it's the central problem with the desktop community and why sales are down. People would much rather blame the software engineer for making more demanding software as opposed to upgrading. And now software engineers are targeting lower end hardware and aiming for efficiency instead of effects and visually pleasing things (why do you think Metro looks so bland? It's because it's not demanding and no one will complain that the 3d shadows on tiles are lagging their ancient GPU).
> 
> A lot of desktop users have dug their grave and they won't admit it, they just want to continue to point fingers at casual users or Intel or AMD for not making anything better. People don't need to upgrade from Nehalem or Phenom still and it's because software stopped growing overly demanding.
> 
> I do think that's going to change with next gen consoles and 10 cores will actually be reasonable, but everyone will go kicking and screaming and blaming software devs for bloat and whatever.
> 
> And just for the record, ever since the 00s I've always advocated more than what people thought they needed, and it came.
> 
> I wanted a dual CPU rig in the early 00s, and people laughed at me. Now you get laughed at if you have a single core.
> 
> I had 1.5GB of ram when everyone had 512MB and people laughed, now you laugh at 1.5GB
> 
> I had 4ghz Pentium 4 and everyone said "lol why do you need that much power?" and now we have ULV chips that would humiliate 4ghz Netburst
> 
> I had nearly 3ghz Opteron 165 and everyone laughed and said it was too much
> 
> Then I had 4ghz i7 920 and everyone said it was too much.
> 
> I simply don't understand why people have always been so opposed to going so far with hardware. Everytime people say "lol ur dum u dont need dat!" and then 3 years later everyone is using that.
> 
> We're already at a point where 8 cores can be practical for streaming + gaming, and that's running console ports designed to run on ancient hardware.


Just on your last part, wouldnt you agree that its because at the current time when you have massive hardware it isn't needed because the software hasn't caught up?
Or is that the main point your trying to make that software isnt catching up, bc thats what i understood from all this.


----------



## MrJava

If AMD had decent yields on a 12 core piledriver die, then why wouldn't there be a 24 core Warsaw on the roadmap? At best, I think the die used in warsaw (and potential AM3+ vishera refresh) would have some process tweaks and better turbo. FX-8370 4.2/4.4/2.6 NB maybe?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 2014:
> G34 => 12/16 PD cores with Quad-channel DDR3
> C32 => 16 PD cores with Dual-channel DDR3
> *AM3+ => 12 PD cores with Dual-channel DDR3*
> FM2+/FM3 => 4 SR Cores with Dual-channel DDR3/Quad-channel DDR4(32-bit)
> 
> 2015:
> GC36 => 12/16/20 XV Cores with Quad-channel DDR4(64-bit)
> FM2+/FM3 => 4 XV Cores with Dual-channel DDR3/Quad-channel DDR4(32-bit)
> 
> 2016:
> GC36 => 24/32/40 BDN Cores with Quad-channel DDR4(64-bit)
> HM1 => 8/16 BDN Cores with Hexa-channel DDR4(32-bit?)


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> Just on your last part, wouldnt you agree that its because at the current time when you have massive hardware it isn't needed because the software hasn't caught up?
> Or is that the main point your trying to make that software isnt catching up, bc thats what i understood from all this.


I think he's more along the lines of "The software isn't catching up today because people are not upgrading to the latest tech".


----------



## MrJava

My wild speculation.

1H 2014
AM3+ - vishera refresh (4/6/8 cores) with higher base/turbo clocks. Flagship FX-8370 4.2/ 4.4 / 2.6NB
FM2+ - kaveri flagship - 4 SR cores @ 4/4.2 ghz, 512 SPUs @ ~900mhz, dual channel DDR3
FS2 - kaveri mobile flagship - 4 SR cores @ 2.5/3.5 ghz, 512 SPUS @ 500-700 mhz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel GDDR5
- dual core and desktop kabinis

2H 2014
- dual and quad core beema and mullins with Puma+ core (higher clocks, turbo core), HUMA, dual channel DDR3
- amd seattle (8 core cortex A57, pcie 3.0, sata, 10 gbe, freedom fabric storage interconnect)

... arggh, crystal ball getting blurry ...

1H 2015
G34 successor - ??? flagship - I won't even try, too many things on the wish list. XV cores w/ L3 cache, stacked/off-die L4 cache, pirate islands GPU, PCIe 4.0, HT 4.0, LAN, SATA, freedom fabric interconnects
FM2+ - carizzo flagship - 6 XV cores @ 4/4.2 ghz, 896 SPUs @ 900-1100mz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel DDR4 (depends on board)
- amd seattle refresh @ 16+ cores


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> My wild speculation.
> 
> 1H 2014
> AM3+ - vishera refresh (4/6/8 cores) with higher base/turbo clocks. Flagship FX-8370 4.2/ 4.4 / 2.6NB
> FM2+ - kaveri flagship - 4 SR cores @ 4/4.2 ghz, 512 SPUs @ ~900mhz, dual channel DDR3
> FS2 - kaveri mobile flagship - 4 SR cores @ 2.5/3.5 ghz, 512 SPUS @ 500-700 mhz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel GDDR5
> - dual core and desktop kabinis
> 
> 2H 2014
> - dual and quad core beema and mullins with Puma+ core (higher clocks, turbo core), HUMA, dual channel DDR3
> - amd seattle (8 core cortex A57, pcie 3.0, sata, 10 gbe, freedom fabric storage interconnect)
> 
> ... arggh, crystal ball getting blurry ...
> 
> 1H 2015
> G34 successor - ??? flagship - I won't even try, too many things on the wish list. XV cores w/ L3 cache, stacked/off-die L4 cache, pirate islands GPU, PCIe 4.0, HT 4.0, LAN, SATA, freedom fabric interconnects
> FM2+ - carizzo flagship - 6 XV cores @ 4/4.2 ghz, 896 SPUs @ 900-1100mz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel DDR4 (depends on board)
> - amd seattle refresh @ 16+ cores


just raising the question here... the majority said that am3+ would not get another chip then all of a sudden a piledriver refresh.. ummm and that would not be steamroller why? Lolz you guyz are silly


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> just raising the question here... the majority said that am3+ would not get another chip then all of a sudden a piledriver refresh.. ummm and that would not be steamroller why? Lolz you guyz are silly


Simple - a piledriver refresh would be easy especially considering that these dies will continue to be produced in 2014 for warsaw server chips.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Simple - a piledriver refresh would be easy especially considering that these dies will continue to be produced in 2014 for warsaw server chips.


and sr modules too.. the arch change isnt that big of a deal the node size is a bit however if they have the cores they will use em unless pd refresh is within comparison of performance which is un likely... last week you said and were determined am3+ was dead now its well ima make this up cause umm it does make sense to keep am3+ for one more chip...

blunders... not meaning to pick on you but that was my point the entire time and now you agree but twist it to make you sound like you were right.

Just saying that again you proved my point I made that was shot down

edit:


----------



## MrJava

Could've, would've, should've. A 8 core steamroller die was either not in the cards at all or cancelled.
Warsaw somehow has a 20% perf/watt improvement over abu dhabi (vishera die); likely through process tweaks and turbo core.
They could still pass these perf/watt improvements on to consumers through a vishera refresh and through richland apus as they have already done.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> and sr modules too.. the arch change isnt that big of a deal the node size is a bit however if they have the cores they will use em unless pd refresh is within comparison of performance which is un likely... last week you said and were determined am3+ was dead now its well ima make this up cause umm it does make sense to keep am3+ for one more chip...
> 
> blunders... not meaning to pick on you but that was my point the entire time and now you agree but twist it to make you sound like you were right.
> 
> Just saying that again you proved my point I made that was shot down
> 
> edit:


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Could've, would've, should've. A 8 core steamroller die was either not in the cards at all or cancelled.
> Warsaw somehow has a 20% perf/watt improvement over abu dhabi (vishera die); likely through process tweaks and turbo core.
> They could still pass these perf/watt improvements on to consumers through a vishera refresh and through richland apus as they have already done.


again as I stated Zzzzzz

I did say if a refresh could perform as well as steam roller..

however your point is mute as you have shown the more logic you put in it you come to my side of thinking


----------



## MrJava

I never claimed that it would perform similarly to steamroller, merely that it would be a 20% *perf/watt* improvement, not IPC or multi threaded scaling. An 8-core steamroller die does not exist, but that 20% perf/watt increase does - sell it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> again as I stated Zzzzzz
> 
> I did say if a refresh could perform as well as steam roller..
> 
> however your point is mute as you have shown the more logic you put in it you come to my side of thinking


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> My wild speculation.
> 
> 1H 2014
> AM3+ - vishera refresh (4/6/8 cores) with higher base/turbo clocks. Flagship FX-8370 4.2/ 4.4 / 2.6NB
> FM2+ - kaveri flagship - 4 SR cores *@ 4/4.2 ghz*, 512 SPUs @ ~900mhz, dual channel DDR3
> FS2 - kaveri mobile flagship - 4 SR cores @ 2.5/3.5 ghz, 512 SPUS @ 500-700 mhz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel GDDR5
> - dual core and desktop kabinis
> 
> 2H 2014
> - dual and quad core beema and mullins with Puma+ core (higher clocks, turbo core), HUMA, dual channel DDR3
> - amd seattle (8 core cortex A57, pcie 3.0, sata, 10 gbe, freedom fabric storage interconnect)
> 
> ... arggh, crystal ball getting blurry ...
> 
> 1H 2015
> G34 successor - ??? flagship - I won't even try, too many things on the wish list. XV cores w/ L3 cache, stacked/off-die L4 cache, pirate islands GPU, PCIe 4.0, HT 4.0, LAN, SATA, freedom fabric interconnects
> FM2+ - carizzo flagship - 6 XV cores @ 4/4.2 ghz, 896 SPUs @ 900-1100mz, dual channel DDR3/quad channel DDR4 (depends on board)
> - amd seattle refresh @ 16+ cores


The manufacturing process favors higher clocks. I expect to see 4.3/4.5 clocks on the Kaveri flagship.


----------



## Papadope

I have a few questions on FM2+ and Kaveri.

When is DDR4 expected? Mid 2014? Would this mean FM3 will come out sometime next year or early 2015? If no, can DDR4 be supported on FM2+. Is that something that could be added to newer FM2+ boards. I assume the CPU would have to support it ahead of time. I just don't want to buy into a platform that's going to have a relatively short life because new standards are around the corner. It may make sense to buy DDR3 though if DDR4 comes out with a ridiculous price tag which it probably will.


----------



## MrJava

You'll need a new board for DDR4 no matter what. I wonder whether the new socket (if any) will be LGA with a higher pin count.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I have a few questions on FM2+ and Kaveri.
> 
> When is DDR4 expected? Mid 2014? Would this mean FM3 will come out sometime next year or early 2015? If no, can DDR4 be supported on FM2+. Is that something that could be added to newer FM2+ boards. I assume the CPU would have to support it ahead of time. I just don't want to buy into a platform that's going to have a relatively short life because new standards are around the corner. It may make sense to buy DDR3 though if DDR4 comes out with a ridiculous price tag which it probably will.


----------



## Konbad

well the price of ddr3 has doubled.. 16gb(4x4gb) ddr3 2400 used to be $100 now its $184, maybe they are raising prices to get people into the mode of thinking $400 for 16gb isnt so bad


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> well the price of ddr3 has doubled.. 16gb(4x4gb) ddr3 2400 used to be $100 now its $184, maybe they are raising prices to get people into the mode of thinking $400 for 16gb isnt so bad


Considering I paid 450 Euro for 24GB DDR3 ECC REG back in 2010 that isn't that bad (I was really sad when the prices dropped that much a year after)


----------



## NTME9

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> well the price of ddr3 has doubled.. 16gb(4x4gb) ddr3 2400 used to be $100 now its $184, maybe they are raising prices to get people into the mode of thinking $400 for 16gb isnt so bad


Really? I don't ever remember 16g @ 2400mhz ever being that cheap, hmm. Eggs got some gskill for 145.00 tho.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> The manufacturing process favors higher clocks. I expect to see 4.3/4.5 clocks on the Kaveri flagship.


Kaveri - 95 Watt, will need the SR cores to be clocked at 5.2 GHz and the GPU cores clocked at 944 MHz to even hit 1050 GFlops.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *drewfus*
> 
> Really? I don't ever remember 16g @ 2400mhz ever being that cheap, hmm. Eggs got some gskill for 145.00 tho.


yeah i was wrong pc3-17000, sorry brain scattered first thin in the morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-pk-A8IqE4&feature=youtu.be&t=15m35s

quite interesting


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri - 95 Watt, will need the SR cores to be clocked at 5.2 GHz and the GPU cores clocked at 944 MHz to even hit 1050 GFlops.


Huh? How did you come up with that number without knowing the performance of a steamroller module?


----------



## MrJava

CPU Cores: 4 cores * 4 SP Flops * 4 GHz = 64 GFLOPS
GPU Cores: 512 SPUs * 2 SP Flops * 963 MHz = 984 GFLOPS

Total: 1050 GFLOPS


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> CPU Cores: 4 cores * 4 SP Flops * 4 GHz = 64 GFLOPS
> GPU Cores: 512 SPUs * 2 SP Flops * 963 MHz = 984 GFLOPS
> 
> Total: 1050 GFLOPS


1048 GFlops.


----------



## Papadope

Ive never understood FLOPS. How could it be a measurement of performance if it doesn't take into account IPC? Or is it not a measure of performance?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> How could it be a measurement of performance if it doesn't take into account IPC?


One instruction leads to multiple operations. One 32-bit or 64-bit instruction can lead to 8*32-bit ops or 4*64-bit ops.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Or is it not a measure of performance?


It is based on operations not instructions. Which makes it completely based on compiler or assembly optimizations.

Wrong instructions => Wrong performance.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Ive never understood FLOPS. How could it be a measurement of performance if it doesn't take into account IPC? Or is it not a measure of performance?


Ahem.
Quote:


> Core Count * Instructions Per Cycle * Frequency = GFLOPS


----------



## sdlvx

I realize this isn't steamroller related but I was really thinking about 6m/12c chip for AMD FX Piledriver refresh.

FX 6000 series and lower could be handled by Steamroller. Get all the budget builders on APU rigs with dGPUs.

4m could be priced to compete with 4670k, lose in single win in multithread

5m could be priced to compete with 4770k. 4m is already close to 4770k, 5m would be superior in multi-thread by a good amount

6m could be priced to compete with 4930k and it would do alright against it.

AMD could be competitive in multi-thread if they do release a 6m chip on AM3+. The rest could be completely filled in by Steamroller. If Steamroller is even remotely close to Piledriver 3m/6c performance there's no longer a need for FX 6000 series.

The typical user who is using FX 8000 series is not going to go back to FX 6300 levels of mult-thread performance. Most FX 8000 owners buy them because they want that multi-thread for streaming, transcoding, rendering, compiling, etc.

I think 5m/10c chip at $299 would be insanely popular with anyone looking for multi-thread.

Look: 5m/10c Piledriver at that price would make 4770k obsolete for a lot of workloads for people who actually do work:


25% MOAR COARS = about 1:51



25% MOAR COARS = about 3:00, and optimized Blender would be faster than 3930k


I think Cinebench is useless but I'm going to throw it in here anyways
25% MOAR COARS = about 8.78 CB11.5 score


25% MOAR COARS = about 46.5 seconds


61 seconds???


38 seconds?

Someone check my math, I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. But if I am a 5m chip at $299 would do very well in some of these benchmarks compared to Intel. And it's a win for AMD. Right now they are selling 315mm^2 dies between $119 and $199. With a 6m chip, they could sell a roughly 330mm^2 for between $159 (fx 8320 price point) and they could probably get around $500 for a 6m/12c chip, but even if they were selling them for $400 they'd be making twice as much on a die about the same size than they do currently on FX 8350.

It'd be money, the question is if there's enough volume in that segment to make up for it. But to see AMD competing with 3930k/4930k with a CPU would look really good for AMD. It'd definitely do some trickle down.

And as a side note, I got my hardware illiterate friends to ask me about AMD APUs yesterday in a laptop. Their first words were "are they bad?" but at least AMD is getting some more mainstream recognition for APUs.


----------



## MrJava

Its peak theoretical performance that they are stating, i.e. not always a useful measurement in real life. That peak theoretical performance (for the SR cores) is the same as bulldozer v1. Improvements in steamroller can get the cores to perform closer to peak theoretical when running real world programs versus bulldozer - thats IPC improvement.

Also, that 1050 GFLOPS number provided us enough clues to figure out rough clock rate for the CPU and GPU if we make some assumptions (like GPU operates somewhere less than 1ghz).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Ive never understood FLOPS. How could it be a measurement of performance if it doesn't take into account IPC? Or is it not a measure of performance?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Its peak theoretical performance that they are stating, i.e. not always a useful measurement in real life. That peak theoretical performance (for the SR cores) is the same as bulldozer v1. Improvements in steamroller can get the cores to perform closer to peak theoretical when running real world programs versus bulldozer - thats IPC improvement.
> 
> Also, that 1050 GFLOPS number provided us enough clues to figure out rough clock rate for the CPU and GPU if we make some assumptions (like GPU operates somewhere less than 1ghz).


umm what... pd performs better than bd by25% and sr supposed to be the same over pd.. not saying it will be but you just said the sr is thee same performance as bd.. what are you smoking?


----------



## roofrider

I don't understand the point of AMD being so secretive about the FX if they indeed have some plans for them.


----------



## EliteReplay

if AMD doesnt show anything to compete at least with the 3770k by march next year in everysingle aspect. i will be getting a 4930k for sure.


----------



## MrJava

You should work on your reading comprehension skills.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> umm what... pd performs better than bd by25% and sr supposed to be the same over pd.. not saying it will be but you just said the sr is thee same performance as bd.. what are you smoking?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EliteReplay*
> 
> if AMD doesnt show anything to compete at least with the 3770k by march next year in everysingle aspect. i will be getting a 4930k for sure.


it will come close but not beat it unless its multithreaded... that is saying that it would have an 4m8c fx on am3+

apus will not be there.. kavari will be less than an i5...


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> You should work on your reading comprehension skills.


no because peak theoretical also goes up ae there are changes to the arch.. what you are referring to is if they did a node shrink and refresh on old arch.. changing the entire front end is not the same as modifying gates and transisters..

so no I comprehend what you are saying but again what you said was not accurate


----------



## MrJava

OK, then do some reading before arguing over the obvious. .... NVM, i'll enlighten you.

Steamroller has unchanged FPU throughput (2 128-bit FMACs). Since single precision refers to 32 bit datatypes, a single FMAC can execute 4 SP FLOPs per cycle (add,sub,mul,div). Then 2 FMACs can execute 8 SP FLOPs per cycle.

2 modules * 8 SP FLOPs per module per cycle * cycles per second (frequency) = peak theoretical output
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> no because peak theoretical also goes up ae there are changes to the arch.. what you are referring to is if they did a node shrink and refresh on old arch.. changing the entire front end is not the same as modifying gates and transisters..
> 
> so no I comprehend what you are saying but again what you said was not accurate


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> OK, then do some reading before arguing over the obvious. .... NVM, i'll enlighten you.
> 
> Steamroller has unchanged FPU throughput (2 128-bit FMACs). Since single precision refers to 32 bit datatypes, a single FMAC can execute 4 SP FLOPs per cycle (add,sub,mul,div). Then 2 FMACs can execute 8 SP FLOPs per cycle.
> 
> 2 modules * 8 SP FLOPs per module per cycle * cycles per second (frequency) = peak theoretical output


so you are referencing the gain to what the architecture can do and not what the benchmarks are.. in that case you are right

now if you are referencing benchmarks then you were wrong. Which was my point

theoretical numbers based on synthetic marks will go up... what you just referred to is theoretical math for the architecture










edit: please tell me again how much I do not read am not literate?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EliteReplay*
> 
> if AMD doesnt show anything to compete at least with the 3770k by march next year in everysingle aspect. i will be getting a 4930k for sure.


Considering Piledriver was a 20% improvement in IPC over Bulldozer and Steamroller will actually do more to aid the per core performance we may see it beat the 2600k(@~3.5GHz) and with a lot of luck we might see it beating a 3770K(@4GHz).
That last one is a miracle since AMD has a crappy process.

I personally hope AMD gets their L2 cache in order and manages to reduce latency on the L3(2.5x as high as Intel's ivy)


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Considering Piledriver was a 20% improvement in IPC over Bulldozer and Steamroller will actually do more to aid the per core performance we may see it beat the 2600k(@~3.5GHz) and with a lot of luck we might see it beating a 3770K(@4GHz).
> That last one is a miracle since AMD has a crappy process.
> 
> I personally hope AMD gets their L2 cache in order and manages to reduce latency on the L3(2.5x as high as Intel's ivy)


Piledriver is barely a 5% improvement in IPC over bulldozer... The actual difference between the two comes mostly from increased clockspeeds.

8320 and 8150 for example have about similar performance.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Piledriver is barely a 5% improvement in IPC over bulldozer... The actual difference between the two comes mostly from increased clockspeeds.
> 
> 8320 and 8150 for example have about similar performance.


true but higher frequency within same voltage


----------



## MrJava

Your reading comprehension is lacking because i explained this a few posts back. You are somewhat correct.
Most credible benchmarks have some resemblance to real world code with plenty of loads and stores, so we don't get to see peak theoretical performance (at least from the CPU).



Sisoft sandra benchmark simulates real world with some fairly complex code (although it fits all instructions in L1 cache) and the a10-6800k doesn't even get close to the peak of 64 GFLOPs.

For comparison, Sandy bridge:
2 256-bit float point pipelines (considering only FADD and FMUL) = 16 SP FLOPs per core

i3 2105 peak FP performance = 16 * 2 cores * 3.1 GHz ~= 100 SP GFLOPs
i3 2105 sandra FP = 38.16 GFLOPs

Pretty good benchmark i'd say. Constrains the theoretical performance by having lots of loads and stores in the mix (just like the real world).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> so you are referencing the gain to what the architecture can do and not what the benchmarks are.. in that case you are right
> 
> now if you are referencing benchmarks then you were wrong. Which was my point
> 
> theoretical numbers based on synthetic marks will go up... what you just referred to is theoretical math for the architecture
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> edit: please tell me again how much I do not read am not literate?


----------



## Opcode

What's with all this talk about Piledriver? Take your guys rumors to another thread please instead of crapping on this one.


----------



## MrJava

Lol, we can't mention piledriver without a mod (of all people







) coming in to derail the thread.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> What's with all this talk about Piledriver? Take your guys rumors to another thread please instead of crapping on this one.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Piledriver is barely a 5% improvement in IPC over bulldozer... The actual difference between the two comes mostly from increased clockspeeds.
> 
> 8320 and 8150 for example have about similar performance.


Same draw higher per core performance (might've been a die shrink still 20% even though it is not IPC bad for overclockers though as that didn't increase that much)


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

@java

so im wrong just because I make a point then you change the way you look at it.. all in all the statements I made are still true.. you are dancing around trying to make yourself better..

cause that still does not show comparison of bd to pd then compare to theoretical for sr.. all in all again im still right with what I said.. you are trying to prove a point that I already said and more you go about the more you prove a am3+ sr is quite possible and still makes good business sense lolz


----------



## MrJava

Found something interesting:

Bulldozer had 4 decoders (3 direct path and 1 vector path). From bdver1.md
Quote:


> (define_cpu_unit "bdver1-decode0" "bdver1") => direct path 1
> (define_cpu_unit "bdver1-decode1" "bdver1") => direct path 2
> (define_cpu_unit "bdver1-decode2" "bdver1") => direct path 3
> (define_cpu_unit "bdver1-decodev" "bdver1") => vector path


As per the following from http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2012-10/msg01079/bdver3.md
steamroller dropped a direct path decoder and so *only has 3 decoders per core* (2 direct path and 1 vector path).
Quote:


> (define_cpu_unit "bdver3-decode0" "bdver3") => direct path 1
> (define_cpu_unit "bdver3-decode1" "bdver3") => direct path 2
> (define_cpu_unit "bdver3-decodev" "bdver3") => vector path


I've emailed the submitter of the gcc patch (an AMD employee) for clarification.


----------



## MrJava

I said it before and I'll say it again - reading comprehension is fundamental. Re-read my original post, I'm done arguing with you.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> @java
> 
> so im wrong just because I make a point then you change the way you look at it.. all in all the statements I made are still true.. you are dancing around trying to make yourself better..
> 
> cause that still does not show comparison of bd to pd then compare to theoretical for sr.. all in all again im still right with what I said.. you are trying to prove a point that I already said and more you go about the more you prove a am3+ sr is quite possible and still makes good business sense lolz


----------



## sdlvx

F3ERS 2 ASH3S theoretical and real world are a lot easier to understand if you look at something besides AMD CPUs.

Look at VLIW GPUs from AMD before GCN. They had massive theoretical performance yet it doesn't come close to where it should be. If the theoretical numbers translated directly to real world performance, Nvidia probably wouldn't be around today.

It also applies for memory bandwidth. Take this graph:



7870 looks to have more bandwidth as it can handle 8xMSAA at 1080p far, far better than GTX 670. However, the bandwidth numbers that get thrown around are merely theoretical maximums.

7870 theoretical maximum bandwidth is about 150GB/s

GTX 670 theoretical maximum bandwidth is about 192GB/s

When you actually test for bandwidth limitations, the card with the lower theoretical maximum wins. Why? Because even though GTX 670 claims 192GB/s bandwidth, that's merely derived from a formula for the maximum bandwidth a chip could have based on frequencies and bus widths.

In the real world, GTX 670 more than likely isnt' capable of more than 150GB/s (and this applies to GTX 770 and GTX 680 as well), and I would not be surprised if all AMD GPUs fell short of their maximums as well. It is just AMD is much, much better at getting GPU to communicate with VRAM.

But you see my point? Nvidia could improve Kepler IMC, leave the bus width and frequency the same, leaving the same theoretical maximum, and STILL have a card that has far more bandwidth that GK104.

So you see why BD and SR having theoretical best being equal means nothing? In the real world it is neigh impossible to get maximum theoretical usage out of anything 100% of the time.

And as for the PD talk and such, it's important to know what AMD is going to do with Warsaw/PD to see what will happen with SR. If AMD is releasing a 6m PD 2.0 (I hope so hard it has the RIchland clocking improvements and the 32nm HDL), it means that AMD won't be touching SR with more than 2m for a while.

If it is not going to happen, it means AMD is either completely going to abandon that market (which I wouldn't even fathom AMD doing), or they would bring SR FX or FX replacement eventually.

But if AMD does release 6m PD on desktop it will raise the bar for SR later, meaning that FX platform and replacement will basically NEED to have 6m/12c high end or else it would be a regression in the top of the line. Which no one wants to deal with as a company, because your company becomes the biggest FUD target of the internet with "LOL THIS IS THE BEST THEY CAN DO!!" and "LOL CANT COMPETE ON HIGH END!!"


----------



## maarten12100

Well if we are to see Streamroller modules they are hyped to be:
20/30 percent faster clock for clock. (some extra pipelines and a double decoder)
30% smaller / more power efficient (due to High Density Library)

I'm thrilled by this even if it wont come to any range beyond Kaveri.
What I do wonder however what will become of Excavator as I think we will end up with a "module" that only actually shares FP front end, SMT and the L2 cache.
We will end up with 2 semi shared cores that have a lot of components for themselves however in the long run with enough resources it might still prove the be superior to Intel's P3 derivatives.

But I figure Intel is already pumping vast amounts of resources into an different architecture they had lying around or are also starting from scratch.
I'm most thrilled about the HDL as it is AMD's way to get around Glofo's fail nodes (goes for every foundry besides Intel's and IBM's)


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Piledriver is barely a 5% improvement in IPC over bulldozer... The actual difference between the two comes mostly from increased clockspeeds.
> 
> 8320 and 8150 for example have about similar performance.


Depends on workload but true difference is most of the times a bit more than 10%.8150 and 8350 both turbo @4.2Ghz for ST duties, so the difference there is down to ipc, not frequency. In games difference is usually even higher. FX-8150 actually has the clock advantage over the FX-8320 in ST duties,since the vishera [email protected]


----------



## NaroonGTX

Another Piledriver refresh for 2014? I seriously doubt it. They already did a Piledriver refresh this year (the 4350 and the 6350) and then released the factory-OC'ed "Centurion" chips, not to mention Richland as well. I also don't see the point in a 6M Piledriver chip. I guess everyone's just saying this based on the fact that they didn't have a higher-end Steamroller-based Opteron on the roadmaps. Who is to say that AMD *has* to start with a server chip and then scale it down with Steamroller? There's no definitive rule for that. It's all just conjecture right now, but AMD is releasing updated roadmaps soon and we will then see what they have planned for 2014 on the desktop side besides Kaveri.

It's just obvious how painfully stupid it would be to have all these improvements in the Steamroller revision and then *not* put them to use in 6/8 core models. To put such a heavy emphasis on their octocore chips, but then do a 180 and say "lol nah nvm" when the SR version would actually be capable of scaling x8 instead of only around 6.5x in multi-threaded performance would just be pure lunacy on their part.

We will definitely see Kaveri first, then the mobile version, and who knows from there. But I think we'll see a Steamroller FX, whether it be on AM3+, FM2+ or both, at some point. Excavator, we basically know f*** all about, but people seem to believe that it would be the first time there would only be APU parts available. Who knows for sure.

Also I'm pretty sure the IPC improvement for PD to BD was a good bit higher than "5%". I've seen the usual amount is 10~15% depending on workload, which goes hand in hand with what AMD said (~15% improvement for each revision.) I know the difference is a lot higher than just 5%, it's not down to just the higher clocks. PCSX2, which is very heavily single-thread focus, is pretty horrible with Bulldozer, yet Piledriver is just fine. No way it's just a 5% difference for that to be true, for example.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Another Piledriver refresh for 2014? I seriously doubt it. They already did a Piledriver refresh this year (the 4350 and the 6350) and then released the factory-OC'ed "Centurion" chips, not to mention Richland as well. I also don't see the point in a 6M Piledriver chip. I guess everyone's just saying this based on the fact that they didn't have a higher-end Steamroller-based Opteron on the roadmaps. Who is to say that AMD *has* to start with a server chip and then scale it down with Steamroller? There's no definitive rule for that. It's all just conjecture right now, but AMD is releasing updated roadmaps soon and we will then see what they have planned for 2014 on the desktop side besides Kaveri.
> 
> It's just obvious how painfully stupid it would be to have all these improvements in the Steamroller revision and then *not* put them to use in 6/8 core models. To put such a heavy emphasis on their octocore chips, but then do a 180 and say "lol nah nvm" when the SR version would actually be capable of scaling x8 instead of only around 6.5x in multi-threaded performance would just be pure lunacy on their part.
> 
> We will definitely see Kaveri first, then the mobile version, and who knows from there. But I think we'll see a Steamroller FX, whether it be on AM3+, FM2+ or both, at some point. Excavator, we basically know f*** all about, but people seem to believe that it would be the first time there would only be APU parts available. Who knows for sure.


agreed excavator fm2+ will make sense but no sr for am3+ is poor business prospecting


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> agreed excavator fm2+ will make sense but no sr for am3+ is poor business prospecting


FM2+ is a more modern platform. Whereas AM3+ has one HT link (25.6GB/s shared between graphics, LAN, SATA, USB etc.), FM2+ allows 16 native PCIe 3.0 lanes for graphics alone (32 GB/s).


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> FM2+ is a more modern platform. Whereas AM3+ has one HT link (25.6GB/s shared between graphics, LAN, SATA, USB etc.), FM2+ allows 16 native PCIe 3.0 lanes for graphics alone (32 GB/s).


only time you need that bandwidth is with 4 1000 dollar gpus.. 99% of user dont have that

by any means I am not discrediting the fm2 plattform.. it just is not a viable one yet although it has decent features it is not needed yet. Fm2+ will be the transition and there are many reasons why.. althou 990 chipset is aging it is not by any means obsolete


----------



## Seronx

A heads up, Carrizo might not be on the FM2+ socket.

Unless AMD plans to gimp a 14-nm APU on a 32/28nm platform.


----------



## MrJava

Bandwidth is essential for even 2-way crossfire. In many games, AMD CPUs are within 5% of intel performance with a single GPU. Then, running the same game with 2 GPUs the intel CPUs get twice the frame-rate. It's clearly some sort of I/O bottleneck.

Not to mention some people would like to run a video card and a PCIe SSD without any bottlenecks.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> only time you need that bandwidth is with 4 1000 dollar gpus.. 99% of user dont have that
> 
> by any means I am not discrediting the fm2 plattform.. it just is not a viable one yet although it has decent features it is not needed yet. Fm2+ will be the transition and there are many reasons why.. althou 990 chipset is aging it is not by any means obsolete


If Carrizo requires a new socket for max performance, then so be it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> A heads up, Carrizo might not be on the FM2+ socket.
> 
> Unless AMD plans to gimp a 14-nm APU on a 32/28nm platform.


----------



## <({D34TH})>

At this point, it's futile to wait for a FX Steamroller.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> A heads up, Carrizo might not be on the FM2+ socket.
> 
> Unless AMD plans to gimp a 14-nm APU on a 32/28nm platform.


I agree with Carrizo not being on FM2+ because DDR4 will be the new standard. However, what makes you think it's going to be 14nm? That would mean GlobalFoundries would be caught up to Intel. That sounds pretty impossible to me, 28nm has taken how many years to get hear from 32nm?. And it's not even here yet, more than likely it's the reason for Kaveri being delayed in the first place. Steamroller cores just don't fit on 32nm.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Bandwidth is essential for even 2-way crossfire. In many games, AMD CPUs are within 5% of intel performance with a single GPU. Then, running the same game with 2 GPUs the intel CPUs get twice the frame-rate. It's clearly some sort of I/O bottleneck.
> 
> Not to mention some people would like to run a video card and a PCIe SSD without any bottlenecks.
> If Carrizo requires a new socket for max performance, then so be it.


I'm pretty sure the bottleneck is CPU performance, not I/O. Heavily threaded games like BF3 have very high scaling in crossfire. Steamroller should theoretically remove or decrease that bottleneck.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Why do you say it's futile? Is it because at the slow rate it seems it would release, it would be too far behind competitor's offerings to be relevant, or that the lack of information spells out of a lack of confidence from AMD?
Quote:


> If Carrizo requires a new socket for max performance, then so be it.


Agreed. Carrizo won't hit until 2015, even if it would require a new socket, oh well.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Why do you say it's futile? Is it because at the slow rate it seems it would release, it would be too far behind competitor's offerings to be relevant, or that the lack of information spells out of a lack of confidence from AMD?
> Agreed. Carrizo won't hit until 2015, even if it would require a new socket, oh well.


It would be fine by me if they skipped SR enthusiast and release a new platform with DDR4 and pci-e 3.0 usb3.0 all native with Excavator.
I've been reading up on SR in the past couple of days and if HDL and those improvements take of all they would need is another die shrink to come into Intel territory and almost Intel's IPC range of Sandy bridge.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> However, what makes you think it's going to be 14nm?


The rate at which 20nm and 14nm is being prototyped. The only issue is Kaveri is launching in the 20-nm time table. 1H 2012 to 1H 2013 for High Performance processors was the 28-nm era. 2H 2013 to 1H 2015 for High Performance processors will be the 20-nm era.

If AMD fails to implement processors on the 20-nm node by 2014 or the 14-nm node by 2015. AMD will get out paced by Apple SoC, Samsung SoC, Intel SoC, Qualcomm SoC, Broadcom SoC, Nvidia SoC.

Apple SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
Samsung SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
Intel SoC -> 64-bit x86 on 14-nm, 2014 and 2015.
Qualcomm SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
Nvidia -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.

AMD -> 64-bit x86 on 28-nm, 2014 and 2015.

Being a node behind the top players equals no one buying your products. Even the underdog players are going to be on 20-nm in 2014. If AMD is slower than the underdog players who only have a R&D of $10 million to $75 million. AMD is going to be a laughing stock in the SoC market.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> It would be fine by me if they skipped SR enthusiast and release a new platform with DDR4 and pci-e 3.0 usb3.0 all native with Excavator.
> I've been reading up on SR in the past couple of days and if HDL and those improvements take of all they would need is another die shrink to come into Intel territory and almost Intel's IPC range of Sandy bridge.


High Dynamic Library is supposed to come with Excavator. I don't know why everyone thinks it's coming with Steamroller now. If it ships with Steamroller then it is Steamroller 2.0 because it has been delayed for so long. Carrizo will use excavator cores which will be smaller (because of HDL, roughly 30% smaller) which will allow AMD to add more to the IGPU or add a 3rd module on the same 28nm process.


----------



## MrJava

Apple, samsung and qualcomm have far larger R&D budgets than AMD.\

Just because AMD needs 14nm to be competitive, doesn't mean it'll happen. AMD needed bulldozer to be competitive with sandy bridge in order to maintain or gain server market share, but that didn't happen either.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The rate at which 20nm and 14nm is being prototyped. The only issue is Kaveri is launching in the 20-nm time table. 1H 2012 to 1H 2013 for High Performance processors was the 28-nm era. 2H 2013 to 1H 2015 for High Performance processors will be the 20-nm era.
> 
> If AMD fails to implement processors on the 20-nm node by 2014 or the 14-nm node by 2015. AMD will get out paced by Apple SoC, Samsung SoC, Intel SoC, Qualcomm SoC, Broadcom SoC, Nvidia SoC.
> 
> Apple SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Samsung SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Intel SoC -> 64-bit x86 on 14-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> Qualcomm SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Nvidia -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> 
> AMD -> 64-bit x86 on 28-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> 
> Being a node behind the top players equals no one buying your products. Even the underdog players are going to be on 20-nm in 2014. If AMD is slower than the underdog players who only have a R&D of $10 million to $75 million. AMD is going to be a laughing stock in the SoC market.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The rate at which 20nm and 14nm is being prototyped. The only issue is Kaveri is launching in the 20-nm time table. 1H 2012 to 1H 2013 for High Performance processors was the 28-nm era. 2H 2013 to 1H 2015 for High Performance processors will be the 20-nm era.
> 
> If AMD fails to implement processors on the 20-nm node by 2014 or the 14-nm node by 2015. AMD will get out paced by Apple SoC, Samsung SoC, Intel SoC, Qualcomm SoC, Broadcom SoC, Nvidia SoC.
> 
> Apple SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Samsung SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Intel SoC -> 64-bit x86 on 14-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> Qualcomm SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Nvidia -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> 
> AMD -> 64-bit x86 on 28-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> 
> Being a node behind the top players equals no one buying your products. Even the underdog players are going to be on 20-nm in 2014. If AMD is slower than the underdog players who only have a R&D of $10 million to $75 million. AMD is going to be a laughing stock in the SoC market.


Global Foundries is behind all of those "underdog" players. Samsung's R&D has already surpassed Intel.

For example, Samsung will be manufacturing 14nm finFET chips by 2015.
Quote:


> The success at racing towards 14 nm comes thanks to massive investment on Samsung's part. Samsung spent $11.9B USD on research and development, and $27.1B USD on facilities (including fab) development in 2012 -- one of the biggest budgets in the industry. Among the big ticket items were a $2B USD new SoC line in South Korea and a $4B USD addition to its Texas SoC chip line.


Source


----------



## Seronx

http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/14XM-FAQ.aspx

Fab 1 gets stuff faster than Fab 8, just so you know.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Apple, samsung and qualcomm have far larger R&D budgets than AMD.


Their actual processor/soc R&D is actually pretty small.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD needed bulldozer to be competitive with sandy bridge in order to maintain or gain server market share, but that didn't happen either.


People who contract with Intel can't cancel their contracts unless they want to pay a termination fee. AMD gained server market share with Bulldozer and Piledriver with those who own small businesses and web/database servers.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/14XM-FAQ.aspx
> AMD gained server market share with Bulldozer and Piledriver. People who contract with Intel can't cancel their contracts unless they want to pay a termination fee.


I'm talking about AMD glory days server market share, not low single digits. The point still stands, bulldozer needed to be competitive with sandy bridge to make a serious dent and it wasn't.


----------



## glussier

If you think that AMD increased it's server market share, you should read this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/203649/article.html


----------



## Papadope

That article is from 2010


----------



## MrJava

You'd need some articles from q4 2011 to present in order to show the bulldozer aftermath. I think it's around 5% currently.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> If you think that AMD increased it's server market share, you should read this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/203649/article.html


----------



## glussier

Actually, Amd went from around 12% market share in 2012 to just over 5% in 2013.


----------



## Papadope

This is a little off topic but maybe someone will know. What is the reason AMD's server options have not been attractive? I thought virtualization was a huge aspect of servers and real cores are much better than hyper threading when it comes to that.


----------



## MrJava

Intel's 8-core/16 thread xeons are faster than amd's 8 module/16 thread opterons in basically all workloads.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6508/the-new-opteron-6300-finally-tested/7

AMD is cost-competitive for things like transaction processing and java (INT heavy), but blown away for rendering and other FP heavy tasks.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> This is a little off topic but maybe someone will know. What is the reason AMD's server options have not been attractive? I thought virtualization was a huge aspect of servers and real cores are much better than hyper threading when it comes to that.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> What is the reason AMD's server options have not been attractive?


AMD fails to service contracts which leads to most of the contractees to move to Intel. Intel is willing to take the blunt of the risk while AMD is not willing. Most of the places where server-workloads are used don't care about performance as long as costs and risks are accounted for.

etc:
Intel has more processors out quicker. AMD takes forever to hit 1 million units.
Intel has dedicated software engineers. AMD doesn't and has poor open source support. (Pretty much all compilers copy and paste 00h family optimizations.)
Intel can give rebates and price cuts for contracts. AMD you don't really have any cost/risk protection.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> High Dynamic Library is supposed to come with Excavator. I don't know why everyone thinks it's coming with Steamroller now. If it ships with Steamroller then it is Steamroller 2.0 because it has been delayed for so long. Carrizo will use excavator cores which will be smaller (because of HDL, roughly 30% smaller) which will allow AMD to add more to the IGPU or add a 3rd module on the same 28nm process.


I wouldn't assume that Excavator will be on .28nm process. It is coming in 2015 perhaps mid or late 2015. I could very well come on .22nm process.Which would easily allow a 4th module plus igpu is entirely plausible on .22nm process.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The rate at which 20nm and 14nm is being prototyped. The only issue is Kaveri is launching in the 20-nm time table. 1H 2012 to 1H 2013 for High Performance processors was the 28-nm era. 2H 2013 to 1H 2015 for High Performance processors will be the 20-nm era.
> 
> If AMD fails to implement processors on the 20-nm node by 2014 or the 14-nm node by 2015. AMD will get out paced by Apple SoC, Samsung SoC, Intel SoC, Qualcomm SoC, Broadcom SoC, Nvidia SoC.
> 
> Apple SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Samsung SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Intel SoC -> 64-bit x86 on 14-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> Qualcomm SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Nvidia -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> 
> AMD -> 64-bit x86 on 28-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> 
> Being a node behind the top players equals no one buying your products. Even the underdog players are going to be on 20-nm in 2014. If AMD is slower than the underdog players who only have a R&D of $10 million to $75 million. AMD is going to be a laughing stock in the SoC market.


That Moore Law Video said the same thing, its extremely difficult to compete with competition that is one process ahead of you, 14nm Broadwell was originally slated for next year, but who knows with that. but if amd is stuck on 28nm through till late 2015 it will be tough time for them. im wanting 8 core goodness. if Kaveri were to have a 6 core variant i might be persuaded to purchase. but im going to attempt to limp my system through till q1 2015 hopefully i can get what im after by then. if i end up buying intel CPU? im going to make sure i buy an Nvidia Card just to spite AMD


----------



## MrJava

People are a little too obsessed with IPC. The FX-8350 typically delivered 10-15% more performance in real world applications while consuming the same power or less.
Who cares what the frequency is.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Piledriver is barely a 5% improvement in IPC over bulldozer... The actual difference between the two comes mostly from increased clockspeeds.
> 
> 8320 and 8150 for example have about similar performance.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Apple SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Samsung SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Intel SoC -> 64-bit x86 on 14-nm, 2014 and 2015.
> Qualcomm SoC -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> Nvidia -> 64-bit ARM on 20-nm, 2014.
> 
> AMD -> 64-bit x86 on 28-nm, 2014 and 2015.


lol. You do realize that those things you listed are on a completely different process type with completely different architecture type and designed for a completely different purpose, right? Simply lumping in 64-bit and a year doesnt make everything the same processor.


----------



## EliteReplay

if AMD doesnt show anything at the level of 3770k or 4770k by next year, im getting tempted to go Intel 4930k CPU


----------



## Papadope

I might pick up a FX-8350 if Steamroller AM3+ really isnt happening. I have 2 questions though.

1. When does AMD normally update their consumer desktop roadmap?

2. With a FX-8350, what happens in games that are multithreaded but rely heavily on the main single thread (Far Cry 3 for example). Does the processor know to put the main thread on its own module so that the resources dont have to be shared? Or does it just put the main threaf with another thread on the same module limiting the actual performance? I know this is heavily related to the windows scheduler and from what I read online there is almost no difference between windows 7/windows 7 patched/ and windows 8. The reason I ask is because if I get a FX-8350 clocked to 4.8 and the resources are being shared, The main thread of the game will essentially be running at 3.84GHZ (20% reduction). Which would be a reduction from my 4.125GHZ Thuban with dedicated cores. This is the main reason I have always been hesitant and have waited for steamroller. Does anyone know from experience?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> With a FX-8350, what happens in games that are multithreaded but rely heavily on the main single thread (Far Cry 3 for example).


That is not a good example of multi-threading, it is a barely adequate design from programmers who suck. Planetside 2 is the same way. Performance is terrible on an FX-8350. And usually performance is fairly bad with an Intel processor too, compared to what both CPUs are capable of anyway.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> 2.Does the processor know to put the main thread on its own module so that the resources dont have to be shared? Or does it just put the main threaf with another thread on the same module limiting the actual performance? I know this is heavily related to the windows scheduler and from what I read online there is almost no difference between windows 7/windows 7 patched/ and windows 8.


Windows simply sees 8 cores, it is somewhat smart enough to know "slave cores", but it will not do any sort of scheduling to just 1 core of each module before moving to shared cores. In fact, the Windows patch actually tries to group processing so as NOT to do 1 core in each module. This is so that power can be saved because firing up the majority of resources in all modules draws more power and makes more heat that using 4 cores in 2 modules and the other modules are in lower power states.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> The reason I ask is because if I get a FX-8350 clocked to 4.8 and the resources are being shared, The main thread of the game will essentially be running at 3.84GHZ (20% reduction). Which would be a reduction from my 4.125GHZ Thuban with dedicated cores. This is the main reason I have always been hesitant and have waited for steamroller. Does anyone know from experience?


huh?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> 2. With a FX-8350, what happens in games that are multithreaded but rely heavily on the main single thread (Far Cry 3 for example). Does the processor know to put the main thread on its own module so that the resources dont have to be shared? Or does it just put the main threaf with another thread on the same module limiting the actual performance?


Not sure if FC3 works like you describe it but I know that few weeks after release it got really optimized for many cores.


Graph to be taken with a grain of salt,ofc (since 8350 beats an SB-E).


----------



## Papadope

@EniGma1987
I agree it is poorly designed multi threading but unfortunately many games exibit this. It will improve moving forward but I have a long list of older games I have yet to play on my Steam account. The only reason for me upgrading would be to improve games with poor multi threading.

Also, I don't think that is the way this architecture is designed to be used. Please see this article. Source
Quote:


> After all, it'd be fairly easy for a "dumb" scheduler to have two threads run on one module, tying up shared resources as other modules say idle. AMD didn't have a good answer at the time, replying only that it was working with Microsoft to address the software side of its hardware dilemma. And at launch, we still had no solution.
> 
> Not long after, though, Microsoft introduced a pair of patches that, first, properly recognized Bulldozer-based FX and Opteron CPUs, spreading one thread to each module before back-filling a second thread to already-utilized modules. The second patch selectively disabled Core Parking in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, keeping the modules from entering a C6 sleep state.


Also, the reason there would be a 20% reduction in performance when running 2 threads on 1 module is that the cores are being starved by the single decoder. They may be running at 4.8GHZ but their IPC is reduce by 20% essentially making it equivalent to 3.84GHZ.

@Kuivamaa
That graph doesn't make any sense. I've run FC3 on many computers and with everything set on low the game is always limited by the CPU. I wouldn't say FC3 is a unoptimized game because the landscape is huge by it is definitely a very CPU demanding that seems to be greatly limited by the main thread.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Simply lumping in 64-bit and a year doesnt make everything the same processor.


AArch32/64 is aimed to replace x86/AMD64-EMT64 processors. So, yes adding a 64-bit and a year makes everything competitive.

ARMv8 is aimed at:
Data Analytics
High Performance Computing
?SQL and Databate
Smaller Servers(You can pack 32 A57-Cortexs with 64-cores each in one rack.)

Warsaw can't compete, Kaveri can't compete, and Kyoto can't compete.

^with any implementation of ARMv8 for that specific market. High Performance AArch64 processors will be on a more advanced node and will have a clock rate beyond 3 GHz. While, in total having the same GFlops or higher than the x86-64 implementations from AMD.

Intel 2H2014 14-nm -> 8 Atom AVX2 CPU cores, 8 Knights Landing AVX3 GPGPU cores, x Skylake AVX3 CPU cores, 24 Knights Landing AVX3 GPGPU cores, 128+ Knights Landing AVX3 CPU/GPGPU cores.

Intel is preparing, AMD isn't.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> @Kuivamaa
> That graph doesn't make any sense. I've run FC3 on many computers and with everything set on low the game is always limited by the CPU. I wouldn't say FC3 is a unoptimized game because the landscape is huge by it is definitely a very CPU demanding that seems to be greatly limited by the main thread.


Well this is on VHQ and apparently it is a proper DX11 game that splits rendering workload among cores. Doesn't seem to like HT though (i5-760 vs i7-920/i5-2500k vs i7-2600k).


----------



## NaroonGTX

Some developers have acknowledged the terrible "multi-threading" support in modern games, and Planetside 2 is one game that will later get patched on the PC to have better multi-threading (i.e. *actual* multi-threading, lol) due to the fact that the devs are optimizing the PS4 version to use all eight threads of its Jaguar cores.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PS2 dev*
> The PS4 is a much more consistent, stable platform for us to be able to develop for. The big challenge with the PS4 is its AMD chip, and it really, heavily relies on multi-threading. We have the exact same kind of Achilles heel on the PC too. People who have AMD chips have a disadvantage, because a single core on an AMD chip doesn't really have as much horsepower and they really require you to kind of spread the load out across multiple cores to be able to take full advantage of the AMD processors.


Quote:


> Our engine sucks at that right now. We are multi-threaded, but the primary gameplay thread is very expensive. The biggest piece of engineering work that they're doing right now, and it's an enormous effort, is to go back through the engine and re-optimise it to be really, truly multi-threaded and break the gameplay thread up. That's a very challenging thing to do because we're doing a lot of stuff - tracking all these different players, all of their movements, all the projectiles, all the physics they're doing.


Quote:


> It's very challenging to split those really closely connected pieces of functionality across in multiple threads. So it's a big engineering task for them to do, but thankfully once they do it, AMD players who've been having sub-par performance on the PC will suddenly get a massive boost - just because of being able to take the engine and re-implement it as multi-threaded.


Source


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Warsaw can't compete, Kaveri can't compete, and Kyoto can't compete.


Well its good thing then that AMD has an 8-core cortex a57 based server chip in the works.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Well its good thing then that AMD has an 8-core cortex a57 based server chip in the works.


Seattle is designed for failure in its market place. If it was being built for networking it would be awesome but it isn't.

Steamroller isn't that great either. If the design being touted and defended so hard from Hot Chips slides is the chip we are getting. Then it is designed for failure, as increased decode power will not increase IPC when the retire rate is still 1 macro-op per core.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I might pick up a FX-8350 if Steamroller AM3+ really isnt happening. I have 2 questions though.
> 
> 1. When does AMD normally update their consumer desktop roadmap?
> 
> 2. With a FX-8350, what happens in games that are multithreaded but rely heavily on the main single thread (Far Cry 3 for example). Does the processor know to put the main thread on its own module so that the resources dont have to be shared? Or does it just put the main threaf with another thread on the same module limiting the actual performance? I know this is heavily related to the windows scheduler and from what I read online there is almost no difference between windows 7/windows 7 patched/ and windows 8. The reason I ask is because if I get a FX-8350 clocked to 4.8 and the resources are being shared, The main thread of the game will essentially be running at 3.84GHZ (20% reduction). Which would be a reduction from my 4.125GHZ Thuban with dedicated cores. This is the main reason I have always been hesitant and have waited for steamroller. Does anyone know from experience?


Since nobody bothered to answer your first question, I will. The consumer roadmap for AMD will be updated sometime between the end of October and the AMD APU Conference on November 14.


----------



## MrJava

INT cores operate on micro-ops not macro-ops, and 4 micro-ops can be dispatched and retired by each INT core.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Seattle is designed for failure in its market place. If it was being built for networking it would be awesome but it isn't.
> 
> Steamroller isn't that great either. If the design being touted and defended so hard from Hot Chips slides is the chip we are getting. Then it is designed for failure, as increased decode power will not increase IPC when the retire rate is still 1 macro-op per core.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> INT cores operate on micro-ops not macro-ops, and 4 micro-ops can be dispatched and retired by each INT core.


The GP x86 cores and the FPU x86 accelerator executes micro-ops. You retire and dispatch macro-ops which gets converted into micro-ops by the scheduler. Each core only has one macro-op dispatch and retire engine in Bulldozer. So, you can only retire 2 micro-ops per core per cycle. The FPU is used by both cores so it can retire 4 micro-ops.

Intel can retire 2 fused micro-ops per thread if two threads are running, 4 fused micro-ops per thread if only one thread is running. Intel has fused micro-ops which is basically the equivalent of macro-ops in comparison to AMD. So, AMD's retirement rate is half that of Intel for the GP x86 part and FPU x86 Accel part. If Steamroller, is only a decode enhancement you will still be behind 60% in some benchmarks.


----------



## MrJava

From AMD Family 15h SOG page 132:
Quote:


> AMD Family 15h processors can decode and retire up to four instructions per cycle.


From David Kanter's Real World Tech on Bulldozer:
Quote:


> In Bulldozer, up to 4 macro-ops can be retired each cycle, matching the throughput in the rest of the CPU.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The GP x86 cores and the FPU x86 accelerator executes micro-ops. You retire and dispatch macro-ops which gets converted into micro-ops by the scheduler. Each core only has one macro-op dispatch and retire engine in Bulldozer. So, you can only retire 2 micro-ops per core per cycle. The FPU is used by both cores so it can retire 4 micro-ops.
> 
> Intel can retire 2 fused micro-ops per thread if two threads are running, 4 fused micro-ops per thread if only one thread is running. Intel has fused micro-ops which is basically the equivalent of macro-ops in comparison to AMD. So, AMD's retirement rate is half that of Intel for the GP x86 part and FPU x86 Accel part. If Steamroller, is only a decode enhancement you will still be behind 60% in some benchmarks.


----------



## Seronx

AMD Dev Central states otherwise. Real world performance falls inline with 1 macro-op per core being run as well.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I'm glad we have armchair engineers with the 100% inside scoop on AMD's unreleased products like Seronx here to keep us in line.


----------



## burticus

I too am waiting for the next AMD release.... I am chomping at the bit to upgrade but Haswell just doesn't seem like a worthy $300 upgrade from what I have when all I do is gaming. I might do it anyway, as I am pretty anal about my 2 year upgrade cycle. While an 8350 FX is a cheaper upgrade @ $240, from the benches I have seen it's like 10% upgrade tops....

Maybe I will try to hold out for a DDR4 platform, I read somewhere Intel is releasing a new chipset for Haswell later this year or early next year.

I dunno.... I think AMD winning both sides of the next gen console market may make them too busy to spend the time required for a proper desktop part.

Eh what do I know. Just have money burning a hole in my (virtual) pocket. Maybe I just pre-order a PS4 and get it over with. (my GTX 770 cries in terror)


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *burticus*
> 
> Maybe I will try to hold out for a DDR4 platform, I read somewhere Intel is releasing a new chipset for Haswell later this year or early next year.


You're thinking of Haswell-E, then. It really does sound interesting, especially if the projections of it having DDR4 and 8 cores (instead of the 6 that Sandy/Ivy Bridge-E currently has) pan out.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> No one on hwbot has benched a 9590.
> 
> http://hwbot.org/hardware/processor/fx_9590/
> 
> Ought to tell you how much it appeals to extreme OCers...


5.9 Ghz on water - http://valid.canardpc.com/fnp5xk
Voltage isn't bad either


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I'm glad we have armchair engineers with the 100% inside scoop on AMD's unreleased products like Seronx here to keep us in line.


Sounds to me like he is Intel's agent within the AMD users ranks to demolish morale. I vote to banish him to Intel threads where he can get a pat on the back for all the destruction he has sewn here. He states steamroller is a lie. That must mean that he states that steamroller will not deliver a 30-35% performance boost over piledriver. It is interesting he never stated this belief in the months preceding and the engineering design of steamroller architecture has been available for well over a year now. Now that the chip is due for imminent release he starts these new claims of steamroller being a lie. The manner in which he has slowly unveiled these so called truths leads me to the conclusion he is deceitful in his aims and should have no credibility here. He can not stand the light of day. I expect him to pack up and disappear any day now now that he is proven to lack in integrity and credibility.


----------



## MrJava

I'm talking about bullcrap like the following.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> I'm saying it should be this.
> 
> http://www.realworldtech.com/bulldozer/10/ <-- taking numbers from this
> 
> Shared 64 KB L1i (4-way) -> Shared 128 KB L1i (4-way)
> 16 Entry Instruction Buffers -> 32 Entry Instruction Buffers
> uCode -> uOp Cache / 4 Decodes -> 8 Decodes
> 128 Entry Retirement Queue -> 256 Entry Retirement Queue
> 96 Entry Physical Register File / 160 Entry FP Physical Register File -> 192 Entry Physical Register File / 640? Entry FP Physical Register File
> 40 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 60 Entry Unified FP Sched -> 100 Entry Unified Integer/Memory Sched / 240 Entry Unified FP Sched
> 128-bit FMAC/IMAC - 128-bit FMAC/XBAR - 128-bit MMX - 128-bit MMX/FSTO -> 512-bit FMAC/IMAC/XBAR - 512-bit MMX/FSTO
> 64-bit ALU/IDIV/Count + 64-bit ALU/IMUL/Branch + 2 * 64-bit AGU -> 64-bit ALU/IDIV + 64-bit ALU/IMUL + 64-bit ALU/Count + 64-bit ALU/Branch + 4 * 64-bit AGU
> 40/44 Entry Load Queue + 24 Entry Store Queue -> 48 Entry Load Queue + 32 Entry Store Queue
> 32/64 Entry L1 DTLB + 16 KB L1d (4-way) -> 128 Entry L1 DTLB + 32 KB L1d (4-way)


Seronx's steamroller is a ridiculous architecture with everything indiscriminately doubled, sometimes for no reason.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'm talking about bullcrap like the following.
> Seronx's steamroller is a ridiculous architecture with everything indiscriminately doubled, sometimes for no reason.


Yea, his die shot doesn't even make sense. That would have to be one ridiculously huge die to be Steamroller.



How do you go from that, to the mess he posted. Especially once you look at the Tahiti die shot, that confirms there isn't even a single GCN core on the die shot he posted. Steamroller is a APU only core at the moment so the die shot would have GCN cores on it regardless, thus its a bad fake. I thought you were referring to me as you quoted os2wiz.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The only person I've seen (at least here) who hyped up SR to ridiculous levels, even in such a subtle manner, was Seronx himself, that quote right there being one of those occasions. I'm pretty sure I recall reading over at another forum that I lurked on where a lot of high-level speculation was being discussed over that supposed die shot, and the consensus there was that a lot of things on the shot (which is apparently actually a shot of a module for some unknown uarch) were doubled up from BD/PD. Of course there was literally no valid reason or evidence to suggest it was Steamroller, or some fabled "new" version of Steamroller, so people just came to that conclusion across the web any time that die shot appeared. If anything, it would probably be Excavator, but that's just me saying that because it's unlikely that AMD somehow secretly started work on "Steamroller v2" out of nowhere at some point.

Everyone else has mostly had realistic expectations. SR will offer the claimed ~15% per/watt improvement over Piledriver, and besides that (and things like the modules no longer being starved of performance due to the decoder no longer being shared between the two integer units) we don't know too many other guaranteed performance improvements. But for someone like him to suggest that Steamroller will be a pointless revision which won't be any better than PD, especially after previously talking positively about it and doing a sudden illogical 180, is pretty telling.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Yea, his die shot doesn't even make sense. That would have to be one ridiculously huge die to be Steamroller.
> 
> 
> 
> How do you go from that, to the mess he posted. Especially once you look at the Tahiti die shot, that confirms there isn't even a single GCN core on the die shot he posted. Steamroller is a APU only core at the moment so the die shot would have GCN cores on it regardless, thus its a bad fake. I thought you were referring to me as you quoted os2wiz.


You guys are way ahead of my knowlege level of silicon. My analysis of Seronyx's veracity is simply analyzing his contradictory conclusion recently as compared to just a few weeks ago. They just don't correlate to what has been known for quite a while. Now either he is undergoing a meltdown in his personal life that has spilled over to this thread or he has some ulterior agenda.


----------



## roofrider

I'm not very clear regarding the next gen consoles and their ports.
Now, AMD said "PC ports of next-generation console titles are likely to struggle to perform acceptably well on Intel-integrated solutions." they are clearly talking about iGPUs and not the extra cores involved.
Now, are the games going to be programmed to take advantage of the 8 Jaguar cores or the HSA, CPU offloading tasks to the GPU, GPGPU, OpenCL and stuff? I thought the whole point of GPGPU is to use the GPU for more than just graphics, how is that going to help in gaming?
If they are going to take advantage of the 8 cores, it doesn't make sense for AMD to be killing the octacores.


----------



## NaroonGTX

When it comes to Intel's integrated solutions not performing well enough (like they already are getting outclassed by AMD's current APU's) I guess it's a reference to how future games will be "optimized for APU's", whatever that means. EA and Square-Enix said that their engines will take advantage of APU's even on the desktop/mobile PC's, so I guess that means some sort of HSA optimizations. Stuff like physics calculations, which used to be done on the CPU in games before Ageia's Physx came along (and was underutilized before they were bought out by Nvidia, where Physx is still hardly used) could now be done with OpenCL-like optimizations, I would suppose.

The fact that several PC titles will see actual support for hexa- and octo-core processors due to both consoles having 8-core CPU's in them (see my earlier post about Planetside 2) should mean that AMD has no plans to abandon their octocore chips. I stand by my currently baseless theory that there will most likely be a Steamroller FX chip at some point next-year to satisfy AM3+ stalwarts and perhaps even offer an upgrade path for those on the FM2+ socket. It might not even be an FX chip, imagine a hyper Athlon chip which replaces the free die space that would be used by the iGPU, but added two more modules and maybe L3 cache (here's to hoping AMD has made improvements to their IMC for all Steamroller-based chips as well as reduced their cache latencies to acceptable levels, finally) instead.


----------



## Seronx

Instruction Set Extension addition checklist for Steamroller to be seen:
AVX2
TSX
AVX3, 512F
XOP2, 512I
ASF
SHA
MPX
xBMI


----------



## Stormscion

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Instruction Set Extension addition checklist for Steamroller to be seen:
> AVX2
> TSX
> AVX3, 512F
> XOP2, 512I
> ASF
> SHA
> MPX
> xBMI


source ?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> How do you go from that, to the mess he posted. Especially once you look at the Tahiti die shot, that confirms there isn't even a single GCN core on the die shot he posted.


... You do know that the die shot he posted is a blown up image of a single module ...right? There wouldn't be any other GPU cores, extra caches, or other necessary parts for the CPU in that shot. Its is a pretty standard practice for leaked core pictures and the fact you don't understand this is kind of worrying with how much knowledge you are trying to present.

I will even draw out a bunch of the stuff for you from that die shot (still completely unconfirmed as Steamroller, just showing what is in that picture):



here, let me show you a Piledriver module die shot now, color adjusted by me since the die shot I found was too different in color to easily compare the two:



EDIT: here is a much better high resolution (and already correct color) Piledriver die shot from Semi-accurate website. This is the same image as the one right above that I edited myself:


And here is that same Piledriver die shot, that someone else already put all the info on:


Comparing both of those two die's, it does actually look like a good deal of things were doubled up in quantity. Other things were re-arranged in the cores, and the module layout is a bit different which would make sense since there is the addition of a whole extra decoder. Whether it is Steamroller architecture or not I dont know. While I can look at a silicon die shot and see what a lot of things are, I dont have nearly the in depth knowledge to give an expert opinion on that picture definitely being Steamroller. I can however say with absolute certainty that it is an architecture with a module design that comes from the Orochi (Bulldozer style) family. It could be Steamroller, could be an early prototype of Excavator, could be some other prototype that we haven't heard of, could be some prototype that was cancelled. I cant be sure.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stormscion*
> 
> source ?


Dont be silly. Seronx with a source? lol Why would Seronx need a source when he can just max 3-4 letter acronyms on a page and call it a day.


----------



## MrJava

Anandtech probably had the best article detailing steamroller changes, and they mentioned no changes to L2 or L3 cache latencies. They could've done various things to decrease the average L2 latency such as higher L1<->L2 bandwidth, larger write coalescing cache and improved L2 prefetching.

In other news, I've confirmed that fetching and decoding happens every two cycles and each decode unit can decode 4 instructions and dispatch 4 macro-ops per cycle.

In essence, each thread gets (at max) 2 macro-ops per cycle which is the same as before. The doubled decode units improve multithreaded performance because various decoding scenarios are handled better than with a shared unit. For example, with a shared decode unit, a vector path instruction could stall decoding for the other core for several cycles. This is not a problem anymore with per-thread decode unit.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> When it comes to Intel's integrated solutions not performing well enough (like they already are getting outclassed by AMD's current APU's) I guess it's a reference to how future games will be "optimized for APU's", whatever that means. EA and Square-Enix said that their engines will take advantage of APU's even on the desktop/mobile PC's, so I guess that means some sort of HSA optimizations. Stuff like physics calculations, which used to be done on the CPU in games before Ageia's Physx came along (and was underutilized before they were bought out by Nvidia, where Physx is still hardly used) could now be done with OpenCL-like optimizations, I would suppose.
> 
> The fact that several PC titles will see actual support for hexa- and octo-core processors due to both consoles having 8-core CPU's in them (see my earlier post about Planetside 2) should mean that AMD has no plans to abandon their octocore chips. I stand by my currently baseless theory that there will most likely be a Steamroller FX chip at some point next-year to satisfy AM3+ stalwarts and perhaps even offer an upgrade path for those on the FM2+ socket. It might not even be an FX chip, imagine a hyper Athlon chip which replaces the free die space that would be used by the iGPU, but added two more modules and maybe L3 cache *(here's to hoping AMD has made improvements to their IMC for all Steamroller-based chips as well as reduced their cache latencies to acceptable levels, finally)* instead.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Anandtech probably had the best article detailing steamroller changes, and they mentioned no changes to L2 or L3 cache latencies. They could've done various things to decrease the average L2 latency such as higher L1<->L2 bandwidth, larger write coalescing cache and improved L2 prefetching.
> 
> In other news, I've confirmed that fetching and decoding happens every two cycles and each decode unit can decode 4 instructions and dispatch 4 macro-ops per cycle.
> 
> In essence, each thread gets (at max) 2 macro-ops per cycle which is the same as before. The doubled decode units improve multithreaded performance because various decoding scenarios are handled better than with a shared unit. For example, with a shared decode unit, a vector path instruction could stall decoding for the other core for several cycles. This is not a problem anymore with per-thread decode unit.


proof of confirmation?

edit... although it wouldnt suprise me it is a pretty bold statement as there is no full proof on the Steamroller arch other than what we have known for more than a year


----------



## MrJava

I reached out to someone at AMD to clarify details within the bdver3 GCC machine descriptor file. Here's some text from the email that was sent to me.
Quote:


> I am passing the fetch, decode cycle details since it is modeled in GCC scheduler descriptions.
> 
> Block fetch is done every cycle in Bulldozer.
> Block fetch is done every two cycles in Steamroller.
> 
> In Bulldozer, the decode unit scans two of these windows in a given cycle decoding a maximum of four instructions.
> *In steamroller, the two decode units scan two of these windows every two cycles decoding a maximum of four instructions.*
> 
> There is no change with regards to FPSTO pipe between steamroller and bulldozer.
> 
> On software optimization guide, we don't have a clear timeline as of its release.


Also, if the FPSTO pipe hasn't changed between bulldozer and steamroller, then it can only do 1 128 bit store per cycle. This is still a bit of bottleneck for store heavy FP code.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> proof of confirmation?
> 
> edit... although it wouldnt suprise me it is a pretty bold statement as there is no full proof on the Steamroller arch other than what we have known for more than a year


Edit:
I can understand why 2 macro-ops per thread per cycle would be a good rate. Each core has two ALUs and two AGUs and the ALUs handle most types of instructions. So even in the worst case where instructions map to single macro-ops, each INT core can basically execute about 2 instructions per cycle, i.e. there is little point in feeding the INT cores more than 2 macro-ops per cycle.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I reached out to someone at AMD to clarify details within the bdver3 GCC machine descriptor file. Here's some text from the email that was sent to me.
> Also, if the FPSTO pipe hasn't changed between bulldozer and steamroller, then it can only do 1 128 bit store per cycle. This is still a bit of bottleneck for store heavy FP code.


thank you gave me a ref point for more reading http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwNDY


----------



## MrJava

^ No problem.


----------



## Papadope

I wish I understood what you guys were talking about lol. This one has gone over my head. What does this mean in terms of performance for Steamroller compared to Bulldozer compared to Haswell?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stormscion*
> 
> source?


There is none it is a checklist once Steamroller comes out. The HotChips slides referenced AVX2 and TSX/ASF but nothing guaranteed. These instructions might or might not be in Steamroller or Excavator.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I wish I understood what you guys were talking about lol. This one has gone over my head. What does this mean in terms of performance for Steamroller compared to Bulldozer compared to Haswell?


estimated 30% improvement over pd most likely 20% and inbetween i5 haswell and i7 single thread and competing i7 for multi.. that of course would be fx 8 core.

Kaveri invetween i3 and i5


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I wish I understood what you guys were talking about lol. This one has gone over my head. What does this mean in terms of performance for Steamroller compared to Bulldozer compared to Haswell?


Giving each thread a decoder probably doesn't do anything for single threaded performance, its mainly there to improve multithreaded throughput. Most people probably already knew this though.

Its a good thing that many other improvements are there to benefit both single and multithreaded performance (reduced i-cache misses, better prefetching, better branch predictor). According to anandtech, a micro-op cache has also been added which should also benefit single threaded performance. I'm thinking that AMD have improved the bandwidth between the L1 and L2 caches as well in order to reduce average store latency.

Then of course, there is the third category of steamroller improvements for power consumption such as a jaguar style instruction cache loop buffer and L2 powered up/down in slices. I guess no one here really cares about the power consumption improvements tho


----------



## MrJava

Then post the slides you are talking about. I've never seen any reference to AVX2 and/or TSX compatibility from AMD.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There is none it is a checklist once Steamroller comes out. The HotChips slides referenced AVX2 and TSX/ASF but nothing guaranteed. These instructions might or might not be in Steamroller or Excavator.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Pardon my ignorance.. how much and why will the added mmx pipe contribute as I dont think that has been discussed


----------



## MrJava

One MMX pipe was removed, not added. One "MMX/FPSTO" pipe remains with an added shuffle unit. Now many instructions which were executed by that removed MMX pipe have been moved to the FMAC's or the "MMX/FPSTO" pipe.

It's unlikely that an application has some chaotic mix of MMX,SSE and AVX code so this was a good idea i guess.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Pardon my ignorance.. how much and why will the added mmx pipe contribute as I dont think that has been discussed


----------



## EniGma1987

MMX isnt even really used anymore is it? I thought it was succeeded by SSE and SSE2? So ya having excess MMX pipes would be kinda wasteful.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I reached out to someone at AMD to clarify details within the bdver3 GCC machine descriptor file. Here's some text from the email that was sent to me.
> Also, if the FPSTO pipe hasn't changed between bulldozer and steamroller, then it can only do 1 128 bit store per cycle. This is still a bit of bottleneck for store heavy FP code.
> Edit:
> I can understand why 2 macro-ops per thread per cycle would be a good rate. Each core has two ALUs and two AGUs and the ALUs handle most types of instructions. So even in the worst case where instructions map to single macro-ops, each INT core can basically execute about 2 instructions per cycle, i.e. there is little point in feeding the INT cores more than 2 macro-ops per cycle.


Just wanted to repost with your edit as that clears up the confusion of why they opted to make it 2 cycles instead of one
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> One MMX pipe was removed, not added. One "MMX/FPSTO" pipe remains with an added shuffle unit. Now many instructions which were executed by that removed MMX pipe have been moved to the FMAC's or the "MMX/FPSTO" pipe.
> 
> It's unlikely that an application has some chaotic mix of MMX,SSE and AVX code so this was a good idea i guess.


thank you


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> MMX isnt even really used anymore is it? I thought it was succeeded by SSE and SSE2? So ya having excess MMX pipes would be kinda wasteful.


I think this is the best answer

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12938612/how-to-use-mmx-in-parallel-with-sse-operations


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> MMX isnt even really used anymore is it? I thought it was succeeded by SSE and SSE2? So ya having excess MMX pipes would be kinda wasteful.


The 256-bit MMX unit in Bulldozer does Integer SSE/AVX/etc. The MMX unit in Steamroller only does Compares, Shuffles, Converts, Stores, etc.

In Bulldozer, the MMX unit is the equivalent of the FADD(Integer) and FSTO unit in Stars.

Also
__fixing stuff__
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> So, you can only retire 2 micro-ops per core per cycle. The FPU is used by both cores so it can retire 4 micro-ops. So, AMD's retirement rate is half that of Intel for the GP x86 part and FPU x86 Accel part. If Steamroller, is only a decode enhancement you will still be behind 60% in some benchmarks.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Real world performance falls inline with 1 macro-op per core being run as well.


Bulldozer Dispatch/Retire => 1 macro-op group per core => 4/more* macro-ops in total per core. 8/more* micro-ops in total per core.
Steamroller Dispatch/Retire => 2 macro-op groups per core => 8/more* macro-ops in total per core. 16/more* micro-ops in total per core.

*Macro-op fusion and Micro-op fusion. Missed the word "group" on the commentary. Sorry, dudes.


----------



## MrJava

A steamroller INT core can still only execute 2 instructions per cycle max and 4 macro ops are dispatched every two cycles. Being able to retire more than 4 macro-ops per cycle is overkill.

Maybe the AGUs are more capable in steamroller, but the family 15h SOG indicates that most instructions are executed in EX0/EX1 including MOV's.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The 256-bit MMX unit in Bulldozer does Integer SSE/AVX/etc. The MMX unit in Steamroller only does Compares, Shuffles, Converts, Stores, etc.
> 
> In Bulldozer, the MMX unit is the equivalent of the FADD(Integer) and FSTO unit in Stars.
> 
> Also
> __fixing stuff__
> 
> Bulldozer Dispatch/Retire => 1 macro-op group per core => 4/more* macro-ops in total per core. 8/more* micro-ops in total per core.
> Steamroller Dispatch/Retire => 2 macro-op groups per core => 8/more* macro-ops in total per core. 16/more* micro-ops in total per core.
> 
> *Macro-op fusion and Micro-op fusion. Missed the word "group" on the commentary. Sorry, dudes.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The GP x86 cores and the FPU x86 accelerator executes micro-ops. You retire and dispatch macro-ops which gets converted into micro-ops by the scheduler. Each core only has one macro-op dispatch and retire engine in Bulldozer. So, you can only retire 2 micro-ops per core per cycle. The FPU is used by both cores so it can retire 4 micro-ops.
> 
> Intel can retire 2 fused micro-ops per thread if two threads are running, 4 fused micro-ops per thread if only one thread is running. Intel has fused micro-ops which is basically the equivalent of macro-ops in comparison to AMD. So, AMD's retirement rate is half that of Intel for the GP x86 part and FPU x86 Accel part. If Steamroller, is only a decode enhancement you will still be behind 60% in some benchmarks.


This is also why superPI is slow.
not just because it's x87 or floating point.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> This is also why superPI is slow.
> not just because it's x87 or floating point.


SuperPi is also slow because of a "bug" or assumed bug in the CPU logic. For some reason x87 code gets executed in a very slow manner. You can patch in a code update to the CPU that changes how x87 code is handled and speeds up execution by ~20% without costing anything in either performance or power consumption in anything else.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5195197&viewfull=1#post5195197
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5196111&viewfull=1#post5196111


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> SuperPi is also slow because of a "bug" or assumed bug in the CPU logic. For some reason x87 code gets executed in a very slow manner. You can patch in a code update to the CPU that changes how x87 code is handled and speeds up execution by ~20% without costing anything in either performance or power consumption in anything else.
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5195197&viewfull=1#post5195197
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5196111&viewfull=1#post5196111


that is Only 20%
I'm talking about the 60% speed difference for AMD vs intel in superPI Where intel can Hit 9 secs at 3.0ghz and AMD can only do 23 sec. at 3.0ghz for phenom II. FX is even slower then Phenom II in x87.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> that is Only 20%
> I'm talking about the 60% speed difference for AMD vs intel in superPI Where intel can Hit 9 secs at 3.0ghz and AMD can only do 23 sex. at 3.0ghz for phenom II. FX is even slower then Phenom II in x87.


The FX series chips don't support x87, they don't have the instruction sets, it has to be software emulated instead, which is much slower.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> SuperPi is also slow because of a "bug" or assumed bug in the CPU logic. For some reason x87 code gets executed in a very slow manner. You can patch in a code update to the CPU that changes how x87 code is handled and speeds up execution by ~20% without costing anything in either performance or power consumption in anything else.
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5195197&viewfull=1#post5195197
> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286448-The-Book-of-Bulldozer-Revelations-Episode-2-%28SuperPI-x87%29&p=5196111&viewfull=1#post5196111


I don't get why the creator just doesn't update the SuperPi source. With the benchmark software that I am writing, I patched all x87 instructions over to use SSE. That way I can avoid skewed results among the Bulldozer line of processors when it comes to floating point operations. It's fairly easy to do in assembly.


----------



## Seronx

Intel x87 FDIV:
Nehalem - 27 cycles
Sandy Bridge - 24 cycles
Ivy Bridge - 24 cycles
Haswell - 24 cycles

AMD x87 FDIV:
00h - 26 cycles
10h - 31 cycles
14h - 19 cycles
16h - 22 cycles
15h 00h - 42 cycles
15h 10h - 40 cycles

Intel x87 FSQRT:
Nehalem - 27 cycles
Sandy Bridge - 24 cycles
Ivy Bridge - 23 cycles
Haswell - 23 cycles

AMD x87 FSQRT:
00h - 27 cycles
10h - 35 cycles
14h - 31 cycles
16h - 35 cycles
15h 00h - 53 cycles
15h 10h - 50 cycles

^--- The two most important instructions in SuperPi.
--
Agner Fog updated his microarchitecture and latency for instructions to include Haswell and Piledriver.
Quote:


> The decoders in the Piledriver can handle four single instructions (1-1-1-1) or one double instruction and two
> single instructions (2-1-1) or two double instructions (2-2) in one clock cycle. The Bulldozer
> can handle (1-1-1-1) and (2-1-1), but not (2-2).


Quote:


> The store unit is not doubled, and 256-bit stores always take more than one clock cycle.
> The Bulldozer has a throughput of at most one 256-bit store per 3 clock cycles if aligned,
> and one per 10 clock cycles if unaligned. The Piledriver is particularly bad on 256-bit stores
> with a throughput of one 256-bit store per 17 clock cycles in my measurements (aligned).


Quote:


> The level-2 cache has a disappointingly poor performance on the Bulldozer for unknown
> reasons. The Piledriver has a much more efficient cache system.


http://www.agner.org/optimize/

256-bit stores are worse on Piledriver than on Bulldozer. While, the L2 in Piledriver is better?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> I don't get why the creator just doesn't update the SuperPi source. With the benchmark software that I am writing, I patched all x87 instructions over to use SSE. That way I can avoid skewed results among the Bulldozer line of processors when it comes to floating point operations. It's fairly easy to do in assembly.


There is plenty of better source Pi programs available, but they dont matter because the long time official benchmark is SuperPi. There have been 3 or 4 attempts to create a new official Pi and it never really works out, the one that came closest is HyperPi which is simply a multi-threaded version of the official SuperPi. Good luck trying to change the world though. Seriously.


----------



## Schmuckley

Roadmap schmoadmap;I want to see something in the stores! Seriously;They could've come out with
a better CPU by now.IF they were doing anything about producing one.

-lost all hope for AMD


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Schmuckley*
> 
> Roadmap schmoadmap;I want to see something in the stores! Seriously;They could've come out with
> a better CPU by now.IF they were doing anything about producing one.
> 
> -lost all hope for AMD


that is a very ummm empty comment as AMD has been producing and improving..

Not sure if about to troll or really just not informed


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Schmuckley*
> 
> Roadmap schmoadmap;I want to see something in the stores! Seriously;They could've come out with
> a better CPU by now.IF they were doing anything about producing one.
> 
> -lost all hope for AMD


That is frustration speaking, not intelligence. AMD s functioning in a very barebones manner. Reduced design team, reduced engineeering staff, reduced marketing staff. Under the circumstances they are doing well. If you can't wait until November to know their plans and whether they will have a product that meets your needs then you are short-sighted.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Schmuckley*
> 
> Roadmap schmoadmap;I want to see something in the stores! Seriously;They could've come out with
> a better CPU by now.IF they were doing anything about producing one.
> 
> -lost all hope for AMD


You've lost all hope? Your sight is clouded and you're letting your emotions get the best of you. Chips take a long time to come out. I'm sure most people in this thread are looking forward to more news about Steamroller -- I know I am -- but what comes with this is a need for patience. AMD has a history of being tight-lipped, and the Bulldozer fiasco of 2011 only made them moreso tight-lipped about talking about performance well before a product releases.

There will be an official unveiling of Radeon HD 9000 at the end of this month, updated roadmaps at some point in this fourth quarter of the year, and of course Kaveri which will hit retail/e-tail in early Q1 2014. AMD is a very different company than it was a couple years ago, both internally and in the way that they handle their marketing affairs. You can't expect the company to behave in the same manner as it did when it was under almost completely different management in every department (which is the main reason why I don't jump on the 'no Steamroller FX' bandwagon so quickly.)


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> I don't get why the creator just doesn't update the SuperPi source. With the benchmark software that I am writing, I patched all x87 instructions over to use SSE. That way I can avoid skewed results among the Bulldozer line of processors when it comes to floating point operations. It's fairly easy to do in assembly.


I'm am interested in this.


----------



## Papadope

Intel pays him not to update the source? lol, conspiracy theory.


----------



## EniGma1987

I guess no one realizes that the point of SuperPi is not to keep it up to the latest source but to use a constant standard. That is why no one uses the official SuperPi 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, or 1.9 versions. The official benchmarkers version is SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS.

EDIT: look like the latest 1.9 version just came out this last July. Also looks like the "official" versions of SuperPi don't even use x87 anymore. The author says it is an x86 program now.

We also have HyperPi for a multi-threaded version of SuperPi. Also there is Y-Cruncher that uses SSE instruction sets to computer Pi, and can be run in single or multi threaded. There are others out there too, but no one cares because it isnt supposed to be the latest and greatest code.


----------



## Abundant Cores

I don't see why AMD fans should even be bothered about SuperPi, it has no relation to real performance and its designed for Intel's CPU's

Its an Intel owners silly toy, so AMD owners, don't use it


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I guess no one realizes that the point of SuperPi is not to keep it up to the latest source but to use a constant standard. That is why no one uses the official SuperPi 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, or 1.9 versions. The official benchmarkers version is SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS.
> 
> EDIT: look like the latest 1.9 version just came out this last July. Also looks like the "official" versions of SuperPi don't even use x87 anymore. The author says it is an x86 program now.
> 
> We also have HyperPi for a multi-threaded version of SuperPi. Also there is Y-Cruncher that uses SSE instruction sets to computer Pi, and can be run in single or multi threaded. There are others out there too, but no one cares because it isnt supposed to be the latest and greatest code.


SuperPi still utilizes x87 instructions even with version 1.9. The official website doesn't have any release notes, so its hard to confirm any changes. The way the author puts it, the code doesn't seem to of changed any.
Quote:


> and while most of the computing market has shifted towards multithreaded applications and more modern instruction sets, Super PI still remains quite indicative of CPU capability in specific applications such as computer gaming.


Tho I am willing to bet it still utilizes x87. The reason as to why is consistency. The original version utilized x87 instructions, so all the years of testing and people contributing results would go right down the crap chute if he changed the instruction set used.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> look like the latest 1.9 version just came out this last July. Also looks like the "official" versions of SuperPi don't even use x87 anymore. The author says it is an x86 program now.




Still x87.



AVX => 24.701 seconds faster.


----------



## istudy92

My windows 7 is 64 bits.

I joined on pg 5 of this thread...i understood everything..then around pg 25 it went downhill now its all hebrew to me;(


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> My windows 7 is 64 bits.
> 
> I joined on pg 5 of this thread...i understood everything..then around pg 25 it went downhill now its all hebrew to me;(


Most (if not all) of it is just nonsense rumors. I quit posting in this thread because it was derailed. People seem to want to discuss Piledriver and future AMD plans that are pure speculation. Steamroller thread to post about everything but Steamroller. I should start a new thread and request this one to be locked.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I guess no one realizes that the point of SuperPi is not to keep it up to the latest source but to use a constant standard. That is why no one uses the official SuperPi 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, or 1.9 versions. The official benchmarkers version is SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS.
> 
> EDIT: look like the latest 1.9 version just came out this last July. Also looks like the "official" versions of SuperPi don't even use x87 anymore. The author says it is an x86 program now.
> 
> We also have HyperPi for a multi-threaded version of SuperPi. Also there is Y-Cruncher that uses SSE instruction sets to computer Pi, and can be run in single or multi threaded. There are others out there too, but no one cares because it isnt supposed to be the latest and greatest code.


What you are saying is illogical. One keeps an ancient version of a program as a benchmark, even though there are updated versions that eliminate deficiencies in the old version. That is stupid and illogical. You do NOT have to remind me to never use super pi.

Op code is correct this thread is derailed.


----------



## EniGma1987

At least it comes back on topic every few pages or so.

You might not like how illogical it is to keep using an old version of the benchmark, but that doesnt change reality







SuperPi benchmarking isnt about just calculating pi as fast as possible. If it were then people would use the latest version of the newest program with all the latest instruction set support. But all that would do is make whoever has the newest CPU with the latest instruction set be the fastest person, and anyone with a last gen CPU cant ever have a chance. As Seronx just proved with his Y-Cruncher run. SuperPi benchmarking is all about keeping the same consistent code that never changes and puts all the emphasis on system tweaking to achieve the best possible score, not on who has the most money.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> At least it comes back on topic every few pages or so.
> 
> You might not like how illogical it is to keep using an old version of the benchmark, but that doesnt change reality
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SuperPi benchmarking isnt about just calculating pi as fast as possible. If it were then people would use the latest version of the newest program with all the latest instruction set support. But all that would do is make whoever has the newest CPU with the latest instruction set be the fastest person, and anyone with a last gen CPU cant ever have a chance. As Seronx just proved with his Y-Cruncher run. SuperPi benchmarking is all about keeping the same consistent code that never changes and puts all the emphasis on system tweaking to achieve the best possible score, not on who has the most money.


Fact: technology evolves and at times makes quantum leaps. Multi-threading was one of the great advances in programming that made it possible to greatly increase productivity. It is an accepted practice in enterprise computing. Why the wintel monopoly has been allowed to keep an advance that is well over 20 years old from being a guiding principle in personal networked computing is beyond me. It is time to take our heads out of our behinds and demand that this practice change in software development. If You want an archaic useless
benchmark to continue go back to the days of 286 computers and math coprocessors.


----------



## synge

Even though I own an FX-8350 I wouldn't lose sleep if AMD decided to ditch their 4 module / 8 core chips.

But I think AMD would really be shooting themselves in the foot if Steamroller doesn't have a 6 core variant. The FX-63xx is the current value champ out of AMD's lineup, and carves out a nice niche between Intel's i3 and i5 offerings.

I want to see an affordable Steamroller 6-core on either platform that would perform around the level of the old i7-970 or i7-980X. That would really give Intel something to think about.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *synge*
> 
> Even though I own an FX-8350 I wouldn't lose sleep if AMD decided to ditch their 4 module / 8 core chips.
> 
> But I think AMD would really be shooting themselves in the foot if Steamroller doesn't have a 6 core variant. The FX-63xx is the current value champ out of AMD's lineup, and carves out a nice niche between Intel's i3 and i5 offerings.
> 
> I want to see an affordable Steamroller 6-core on either platform that would perform around the level of the old i7-970 or i7-980X. That would really give Intel something to think about.


AMD is moving away from traditional serial processing and more towards GPGPU. They will no longer need to release a eight core monster to compete with Intel.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> AMD is moving away from traditional serial processing and more towards GPGPU. They will no longer need to release a eight core monster to compete with Intel.


Only if AMD can get the major software companies to take advantage of it's architecture.


----------



## svenge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> AMD ... will no longer need to release a eight core monster to compete with Intel.


That's only if your assumption that anyone _not sponsored by AMD_ will actually target their programming towards their platform. If that doesn't come to pass, AMD will have reduced their product line down to having only low-end chips, namely dual-module APUs.

That would leave AMD without anything to compete with for the mid-range quad-core Socket 1150 market segment (let alone the hex-core Socket 2011 high-end)...


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> That's only if your assumption that anyone _not sponsored by AMD_ will actually target their programming towards their platform. If that doesn't come to pass, AMD will have reduced their product line down to having only low-end chips, namely dual-module APUs.
> 
> That would leave AMD without anything to compete with for the mid-range quad-core Socket 1150 market segment (let alone the hex-core Socket 2011 high-end)...


look
That is what most of the intelligent enthusiast and power user community around AMD are saying. They need to cover their behinds with more than a 4 core product at least until there is mass adoption of HSA architecture among major software developers. Otherwise they could be holding only the lowest segment of the market which I can guarantee will not have high profit margins. Customers will de extremely disappointed and will defect if the promise of HSA does not come to fruition. A 6 and 8 core steamroller II is a necessity. That is unless excavator can be released in early 2015 on a .22nm process. Then a 6 or 8 core excavator apu could really guarantee AMD a significant mid tier market fot their chips.


----------



## roofrider

Warsam's APU feedback thread in Anandtech seems to suggest they are going all APUs (or maybe not /before someone retorts), maybe some of you can chime in there.

Ok, that thread's now closed. Lol.

Back on topic.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah this thread has derailed many times. Usually someone will come in and post something that's irrelevant to SR or barely related and it just continues from there.

But besides speculating on theoretical performance or what have you, there's not much to talk about...

However, I'd love to see a new die (what is stopping them? nothing [besides R&D costs lol]) on FM2+, something like a Phenom III (if they choose to abandon the FX brand for whatever reason) - 2 to 4 modules total with L3 cache included, i.e. no iGPU for the people who want more threads. It would be using the Steamroller cores of course. If not that, just use the Athlon branding again. Athlon III since technically all Athlon II's were using K10-derived cores (including the Llano Athlon II's).

Gonna give that thread a quick look. APU's apparently make up a huge portion of AMD's sales today, so it would make sense (along with the HSA initiatives) to focus on those products more and more. Their FX stuff still sells, just not as much.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> Only if AMD can get the major software companies to take advantage of it's architecture.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svenge*
> 
> That's only if your assumption that anyone _not sponsored by AMD_ will actually target their programming towards their platform. If that doesn't come to pass, AMD will have reduced their product line down to having only low-end chips, namely dual-module APUs.
> 
> That would leave AMD without anything to compete with for the mid-range quad-core Socket 1150 market segment (let alone the hex-core Socket 2011 high-end)...


That's the key to the whole operation. If AMD goes APU only for the next couple of generations (or forever). It will push developers towards optimizing their software for HSA. AMD doesn't hold a very large portion of the market, tho the little bit that they do have accounts for millions of dollars in software revenue. So it definitely wont be something that large software vendors will ignore. Even if they do, a quad core with Nehalem-Sandy Bridge performance is more than enough for today's consumer. Tho I can almost guarantee at some point all of your commercial grade software will be HSA optimized. Software like Adobe Suite will be quick to adopt the technology. Keep in mind OpenCL wasn't exactly an easy SDK to utilize. Tho it still made itself known in lots of today's software.


Adobe PhotoShop CS6
Battlefield 3
Final Cut Pro X
GIMP
Handbrake
LuxMark
Mathematica 8
VLC Media Player
HSAIL on the other hand is to be released as a extension for high level languages such as C++ and Java. Making it that much easier for developers to adopt the technology. The problem that I foresee isn't the lack of developers adopting HSA. It's what will become of GPGPU once a major software vendor does. The difference in the software's performance will be astronomical even in comparison to the Socket 2011 line of CPU's. An analogy would be a city full of gas stations. If one gas station dropped the price of their gas by $0.50, all the other nearby stations would follow suite. Simply because if they didn't they would lose a large amount of revenue to their competitors. The software world works exactly the same. Your software suit has to remain up to date with the latest that technology has to offer. Otherwise someone else will fill that gap with their own implementation and claim half of your consumer base (you still got the "I am familiar with it, so i'll keep using it anyways" bunch). HSA wont replace what OpenCL already is to the consumer. Tho in the perceivable future it will help GPGPU become closer to being a standard than the OpenCL SDK ever did alone. You also have to think beyond the consumer, APU's are more cost effective to businesses and schools. I am also certain a super computer could be made of APU's. Web servers, game servers, and other software can be written to utilize the power of GPGPU. Which would lead to growth in AMD's server market share. I am not sure if anyone here has ever written a game server before, but there is a lot of math that happens all the time (especially floating point calculations in MMO's). I mean you both are right, that it will be limited to what software is readily available to utilize it. Tho I personally think GPGPU should be standard by at least 2016. Intel and AMD could keep piling on the x86 cores to raise the performance of their processors. But it doesn't scale as good as having a few x86 cores paired with GPU cores. Especially with both of them taking up the same space and the APU consuming equal or less power. AMD certainly could stack 12 steamroller cores into one hell of a FX monster. Tho if you stood it up against their 4 core flagship Kaveri APU in software optimized for both CPU and GPU cores. The APU would run circles around it all day long. This is why AMD is moving in the direction that they are moving. They are tapping into a new resource that Intel hasn't even given much thought to yet.

This post might be a little "rambly" (it's early and no sleep) tho I think you get what i'm trying to say.


----------



## L4dd

That was well put, *Opcode*, and your new avatar is awesome! I had that green guy as my avatar from the A.M.D. Processor Forums for a while...


----------



## roofrider

Didn't know VLC used OpenCL lol, it's just a frigging player but then i use WMP more.
A lot of the big players in the rendering and video editing arena already support OpenCL (even Vegas does, it wasn't mentioned earlier), if they don't then they will be left behind.
I'm not a programmer at all but from my understanding it is fairly simple to use HSAIL to leverage the heterogeneous architecture compared to the complex GPU coding they are already doing, with the right push from AMD i think APUs will have a huge advantage here.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Most (if not all) of it is just nonsense rumors. I quit posting in this thread because it was derailed. People seem to want to discuss Piledriver and future AMD plans that are pure speculation. Steamroller thread to post about everything but Steamroller. I should start a new thread and request this one to be locked.


Agreed, I requested the same thing a while ago, or the name should be changed to "Speculation of AMD's Future Plans".


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> That's the key to the whole operation. If AMD goes APU only for the next couple of generations (or forever). It will push developers towards optimizing their software for HSA. AMD doesn't hold a very large portion of the market, tho the little bit that they do have accounts for millions of dollars in software revenue. So it definitely wont be something that large software vendors will ignore. Even if they do, a quad core with Nehalem-Sandy Bridge performance is more than enough for today's consumer. Tho I can almost guarantee at some point all of your commercial grade software will be HSA optimized. Software like Adobe Suite will be quick to adopt the technology. Keep in mind OpenCL wasn't exactly an easy SDK to utilize. Tho it still made itself known in lots of today's software.
> 
> 
> Adobe PhotoShop CS6
> Battlefield 3
> Final Cut Pro X
> GIMP
> Handbrake
> LuxMark
> Mathematica 8
> VLC Media Player
> HSAIL on the other hand is to be released as a extension for high level languages such as C++ and Java. Making it that much easier for developers to adopt the
> technology. The problem that I foresee isn't the lack of developers adopting HSA. It's what will become of GPGPU once a major software vendor does. The
> difference in the software's performance will be astronomical even in comparison to the Socket 2011 line of CPU's. An analogy would be a city full of gas stations.
> If one gas station dropped the price of their gas by $0.50, all the other nearby stations would follow suite. Simply because if they didn't they would lose a large
> amount of revenue to their competitors. The software world works exactly the same. Your software suit has to remain up to date with the latest that technology
> has to offer. Otherwise someone else will fill that gap with their own implementation and claim half of your consumer base (you still got the "I am familiar with it,
> so i'll keep using it anyways" bunch). HSA wont replace what OpenCL already is to the consumer. Tho in the perceivable future it will help GPGPU become closer
> to being a standard than the OpenCL SDK ever did alone. You also have to think beyond the consumer, APU's are more cost effective to businesses and schools. I
> am also certain a super computer could be made of APU's. Web servers, game servers, and other software can be written to utilize the power of GPGPU. Which
> would lead to growth in AMD's server market share. I am not sure if anyone here has ever written a game server before, but there is a lot of math that happens all
> the time (especially floating point calculations in MMO's). I mean you both are right, that it will be limited to what software is readily available to utilize it. Tho I
> personally think GPGPU should be standard by at least 2016. Intel and AMD could keep piling on the x86 cores to raise the performance of their processors. But it
> doesn't scale as good as having a few x86 cores paired with GPU cores. Especially with both of them taking up the same space and the APU consuming equal or
> less power. AMD certainly could stack 12 steamroller cores into one hell of a FX monster. Tho if you stood it up against their 4 core flagship Kaveri APU in
> software optimized for both CPU and GPU cores. The APU would run circles around it all day long. This is why AMD is moving in the direction that they are
> moving. They are tapping into a new resource that Intel hasn't even given much thought to yet./Quote
> 
> The theory is fine, but how quick software vendors adopt it is another issue. AMD must survive the transition period. It could be another 2-3 years before massive adoption is a fact. Will the public buy a 4 core steamroller or excavator if they are told it won't be better or equal to Intel? No they won't . That is why you have to have a product in the current market with enough horsepower to kickass on I 3 and I 5 processors. That can only happen with 6 or 8 core steamroller or excavator.


----------



## istudy92

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Fact: technology evolves and at times makes quantum leaps. Multi-threading was one of the great advances in programming that made it possible to greatly increase productivity. It is an accepted practice in enterprise computing. Why the wintel monopoly has been allowed to keep an advance that is well over 20 years old from being a guiding principle in personal networked computing is beyond me. It is time to take our heads out of our behinds and demand that this practice change in software development. If You want an archaic useless
> benchmark to continue go back to the days of 286 computers and math coprocessors.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Most (if not all) of it is just nonsense rumors. I quit posting in this thread because it was derailed. People seem to want to discuss Piledriver and future AMD plans that are pure speculation. Steamroller thread to post about everything but Steamroller. I should start a new thread and request this one to be locked.


Yes this thread is derailed i don't give a damn about the future of AMD, i bet 80% of you guys are not even a stockholder like I am, and u dont talk about future through here, you guys represent a minority your not the cash cow for amd sorry to burst your bubble but if amd wants to rid fx they will for the shareholders benifit and mainstream benifit.
End of story

To end things about software lagging
120'000 jobs are being created every year for IT, and computer science skilled worker, and only 60,000 are produced each year by university's. there is surplus of jobs and deficit in skilled workers in this field, which leads to software development to lag behind hardware.
Its not that we are not capable its that we are hamstringed by lack of human capital to go foward as the hardware industry.

To begin,
I cant wait for September 25th all these new announcements woahhh yeahhh stockholders candy


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> Yes this thread is derailed i don't give a damn about the future of AMD, i bet 80% of you guys are not even a stockholder like I am, and u dont talk about future through here, you guys represent a minority your not the cash cow for amd sorry to burst your bubble but if amd wants to rid fx they will for the shareholders benifit and mainstream benifit.
> End of story
> 
> To end things about software lagging
> 120'000 jobs are being created every year for IT, and computer science skilled worker, and only 60,000 are produced each year by university's. there is surplus of jobs and deficit in skilled workers in this field, which leads to software development to lag behind hardware.
> Its not that we are not capable its that we are hamstringed by lack of human capital to go foward as the hardware industry.
> 
> To begin,
> I cant wait for September 25th all these new announcements woahhh yeahhh stockholders candy


Some of your factology is mythology. Yes there are many unfilled IT tech jobs including skilled programmer jobs. The myth comes in where you imply these jobs would be open to US applicants. Au contraire (To the contrary) the Microsofts, Adobes, EA's do NOT want US applicants that would demand more than the pittance they pay foreign workers to come under contract. MY cousin was a software developer and and team manager for a prestigious bank in NY for many year. Then 12 years ago they laid her and many others off and contracted the work out for half the money. She eventually got a job back in the industry for less than half she originally made. She had a 6 figure salary about $120,000 a year and now at 67 still works because she can't afford to retire on $60,000 a year with Manhattan rent to pay. The same thing happened to a IT educator I knew who worked as a contract educator in Java, CICS, and other technologies for large university and corporate IT departments. Jobs became scarcer and scarcer until he got no contracts at all. He was doing telemarketing in North Carolina, after being forced out of New York because of the dire situation. Now after 15 years out of the field, he was hired by a North Carolina educational testing software developer in the Triad near Raleigh-Durham. His salary is of course much lower though not as bad as my cousin. I know of several others as well. There are very few good paying jobs in software development in the US. Most work is contracted out to Asia and those hired in the US are mostly foreign developers brought in as contract employees under abominal conditions. Software development is the new skilled sweat shop industry. The world-wide financial crisis has only accelerated the trend. Now some additional hiring is happening of US trained developers , as salaries have been cut by more than half do to capitalist savagery.


----------



## Konbad

I left the IT "Career" back in early 05 because all i heard was im going to university so i can be a programmer or Technical College etc etc everyone wanted to be in the IT Trade, i went to opposite way i got an apprenticeship at my fathers panel shop, now im qualified and am never out of work, the workshop is booked out till march 2014 already. no-one wants to to hard physical work these days, and its the work that is always guaranteed, you will always need someone to fix your car, build your house or do your plumbing/ electrical


----------



## sharpshoooter82

AMD obviously is hiding something there completely stupid
Patience everyone amd will come out with something


----------



## istudy92

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Some of your factology is mythology. Yes there are many unfilled IT tech jobs including skilled programmer jobs. The myth comes in where you imply these jobs would be open to US applicants. Au contraire (To the contrary) the Microsofts, Adobes, EA's do NOT want US applicants that would demand more than the pittance they pay foreign workers to come under contract. MY cousin was a software developer and and team manager for a prestigious bank in NY for many year. Then 12 years ago they laid her and many others off and contracted the work out for half the money. She eventually got a job back in the industry for less than half she originally made. She had a 6 figure salary about $120,000 a year and now at 67 still works because she can't afford to retire on $60,000 a year with Manhattan rent to pay. The same thing happened to a IT educator I knew who worked as a contract educator in Java, CICS, and other technologies for large university and corporate IT departments. Jobs became scarcer and scarcer until he got no contracts at all. He was doing telemarketing in North Carolina, after being gorced out of New York because of the dire situation. Now after 15 years out of the field, he was hired by a North Carolina educational testing software developer in the Triad near Raleigh-Durham. His salary is of course much lower though not as bad as my cousin. I know of several others as well. There are very few good paying jobs in software development in the US. Most work is contracted out to Asia and those hired in the US are mostly foreign developers brought in as contract employees under abominal conditions. Software development is the new skilled sweat shop industry. The world-wide financial crisis has only accelerated the trend. Now some additional hiring is happening of US trained developers , as salaries have been cut by more than half do to capitalist savagery.


I understand what personal experience you have seen but you must remember thwt what your saying needs to be expanded such as what type if work being done if it was truely programming or, more per say technical work that does truely require a degree in programming but a mere certification like Cisco systems that could easly be outsourced to Asia.
Currently at stevens intitute of technology my university all my friends work in various fields ranging from google to the NY fed as a programmer to an engineer to a cyber security. 12 years ago is too far back to judge today's market. Especially when technology makes things more cost effective.
Noone is wrong in this statement because we both bring up valid points, where it seperates is in what specific field and why.

Ps.. Any misspelling or rudeness iv had like 3 frozen sangria s, island ice tea and few beers im kinda tipsy lol..forgive meh


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Intel's CEO then went on to show the first, functional 14nm Broadwell-based system. If you're unfamiliar with Broadwell, it is essentially the 14nm shrink of Haswell, targeted at the mobile market. The Broadwell system was running Windows 8.1 and was fully functional. According to Krzanich, 14nm Broadwell SoCs will be shipping to partners by the end of this year, for commercial availability next year.


Steamroller needs to hurry up....


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> Steamroller needs to hurry up....


Meh... everytime Intel bring out a new CPU the performance changes little and overclocking levels go down.

IMO, Moors law has been reached, even if Intel insist it hasn't.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yet another die-shrink, not really blown... Power consumption will go down in mobile, but that's about it. If updated Steamroller parts come later in 2014, and GloFo has a functioning and stable 20/22nm node ready, then it'll be possible for AMD to introduce that 3M/6T version of Kaveri they had planned. Hell, with the die-shrink and HDL, they could have an octocore APU with a beefier GPU as well.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Yet another die-shrink, not really blown... Power consumption will go down in mobile, but that's about it. If updated Steamroller parts come later in 2014, and GloFo has a functioning and stable 20/22nm node ready, then it'll be possible for AMD to introduce that 3M/6T version of Kaveri they had planned. Hell, with the die-shrink and HDL, they could have an octocore APU with a beefier GPU as well.


Refresh my memory on HDL please.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> I understand what personal experience you have seen but you must remember thwt what your saying needs to be expanded such as what type if work being done if it was truely programming or, more per say technical work that does truely require a degree in programming but a mere certification like Cisco systems that could easly be outsourced to Asia.
> Currently at stevens intitute of technology my university all my friends work in various fields ranging from google to the NY fed as a programmer to an engineer to a cyber security. 12 years ago is too far back to judge today's market. Especially when technology makes things more cost effective.
> Noone is wrong in this statement because we both bring up valid points, where it seperates is in what specific field and why.
> 
> Ps.. Any misspelling or rudeness iv had like 3 frozen sangria s, island ice tea and few beers im kinda tipsy lol..forgive meh


These were highly skilled programmers and project managers , not some low-skilled individual with some Cisco certification. I did say programmers I do not know why you challenge the veracity of facts that I present. I am no ignar, I speak truth and you damn well know it.


----------



## Tojara

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Meh... everytime Intel bring out a new CPU the performance changes little and overclocking levels go down.
> 
> IMO, Moors law has been reached, even if Intel insist it hasn't.


Moore's law is about transistor count, they are still pretty much on track on that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Refresh my memory on HDL please.



Smaller dies and less power consumption.


----------



## Seronx

^-- Synopsis' comparison.

Bulldozer and Piledriver were done on High Speed Libraries.
Steamroller Rev B and Excavator will be done on High Density Libraries.

The picture from Hot Chips shows a Bulldozer/Piledriver FPU being shrunk. Implying 32nm HSL to 32nm HDL was planned at some point.

FPU Scheduler(Purple Rainbow) - FPU Dispatch/Control Logic(Blue) - FPU Retire Component(Grey/Pink)

32nm HSL to 28nm HDL is the equivalent of going to 22-nm HSL. Without any of the speed improvements of going from 32-nm to 22-nm.


----------



## MrJava

Steamroller rev B? Whatever that is, its not inside kaveri. Kaveri's steamroller cores are still high frequency (> 3.5GHz) designs.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Steamroller rev B? Whatever that is, its not inside kaveri. Kaveri's steamroller cores are still high frequency (> 3.5GHz) designs.


June 2012(/earlier) -> June 2013 = Steamroller Rev B development.

Steamroller Rev A was May 2011(/earlier) to June 2012 in that timeframe it was found that it was not going to competitive with Haswell.

KV-B(x) = Steamroller Rev B.

Just an interesting note:
22-nm SHP/POWER8 was at version v0.01 PDK in the 2H of 2011.
20-nm LPM which is actually 20-nm HP hit v0.01 PDK in the 1H of 2012.

Both are currently at final(v1.0) to revised final(v2.0) and technically could be ramped and brought out soon.


----------



## NaroonGTX

So in other words, it's indeed possible for a Kaveri refresh in later 2014 to be on an even lower node (22nm or 20nm?)


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> So in other words, it's indeed possible for a Kaveri refresh in later 2014 to be on an even lower node (22nm or 20nm?)


Kaveri Refresh will be on the same node as Kaveri.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Meh... everytime Intel bring out a new CPU the performance changes little and overclocking levels go down.
> 
> IMO, Moors law has been reached, even if Intel insist it hasn't.


AMD has an arch to improve upon while P3 has ran its course all they can do really is very minor upgrades, increase core count, shrink process.

I'm trilled for excavator as that should be a new node HDL and significant IPC improvements just like steamroller will pack.
It should make for something really good.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Abundant Cores*
> 
> Meh... everytime Intel bring out a new CPU the performance changes little and overclocking levels go down.
> 
> IMO, Moors law has been reached, even if Intel insist it hasn't.
> 
> 
> 
> AMD has an arch to improve upon while P3 has ran its course all they can do really is very minor upgrades, increase core count, shrink process.
> 
> I'm trilled for excavator as that should be a new node HDL and significant IPC improvements just like steamroller will pack.
> It should make for something really good.
Click to expand...

The term I like to use for AMD's situation in regards to Bulldozer and derivatives is "abundant low hanging fruit"
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Steamroller rev B? Whatever that is, its not inside kaveri. Kaveri's steamroller cores are still high frequency (> 3.5GHz) designs.
> 
> 
> 
> June 2012(/earlier) -> June 2013 = Steamroller Rev B development.
> 
> Steamroller Rev A was May 2011(/earlier) to June 2012 in that timeframe it was found that it was not going to competitive with Haswell.
> 
> KV-B(x) = Steamroller Rev B.]
Click to expand...

Friendly reminder it was announced August 2012 that Jim Keller returned to AMD. Kind of convenient timing regarding time timing of cancellation of bdver3a and bdver3b.

Also, digging through old articles regarding Keller's return, I notice a lot of comments talking about how AMD needs to go back to drawing everything by hand. And now we're talking about how AMD is going to basically get a free die shrink by re-doing the part that was done by hand with automated tools.


----------



## MrJava

I honestly don't you can completely rework a CPU design that quickly.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The term I like to use for AMD's situation in regards to Bulldozer and derivatives is "abundant low hanging fruit"
> Friendly reminder it was announced August 2012 that Jim Keller returned to AMD. Kind of convenient timing regarding time timing of cancellation of bdver3a and bdver3b.
> 
> Also, digging through old articles regarding Keller's return, I notice a lot of comments talking about how AMD needs to go back to drawing everything by hand. And now we're talking about how AMD is going to basically get a free die shrink by re-doing the part that was done by hand with automated tools.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I honestly don't you can completely rework a CPU design that quickly.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The term I like to use for AMD's situation in regards to Bulldozer and derivatives is "abundant low hanging fruit"
> Friendly reminder it was announced August 2012 that Jim Keller returned to AMD. Kind of convenient timing regarding time timing of cancellation of bdver3a and bdver3b.
> 
> Also, digging through old articles regarding Keller's return, I notice a lot of comments talking about how AMD needs to go back to drawing everything by hand. And now we're talking about how AMD is going to basically get a free die shrink by re-doing the part that was done by hand with automated tools.
Click to expand...

That would be nearly 2 years of development time for a revision of the chip small enough to not warrant a new code name. We also don't know if bdver3b was in development before that. However i'm not implying a complete re-work. As I said there's "abundant low hanging fruit" so it should be possible to get very good gains without massive re-working of the chip.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that bdver3a might have had some easy to fix problems that would net a lot of performance that someone like Keller would pick up on and others would miss, and AMD may have calculated it would be best to can bdver3a in some markets, develop bdver3b.

I do realize that 2 years to retail is not enough time to make drastic changes, but I would think of it more along the lines of a better stepping of a chip as opposed to a new microarchitecture.

It just means things will be interesting. Perhaps AMD will kind of mimic Intel with the "enthusiast" class being delayed from mainstream, but AMD might up the ante a little bit by making performance oriented changes to the architecture. It would make a lot of sense as Intel seems to be wanting to cram their laptop architecture into server chips and performance parts, and it's leaving a lot of people wanting more. That and it's not providing lucrative reasons for people to upgrade, from say SB overclocked to Haswell overclocked.

If AMD could deliver an enthusiast platform with 15% or so increase in performance per core a year while adding more cores or whatever, they'd give a lot of enthusiasts who want to buy new toys a reason to buy new toys, instead of buying "herp derp shake and bake raise dat multi i'm so enthusiast!!!" update that's 5% faster, you'd get something good.

Of course I'm assuming AMD is still going to care about their "enthusiast" market and they might give up completely.

Also, I always call it "enthusiast" because it's just a marketing term between each company and according to Intel, everyone who doesn't use LGA2011 is "mainstream". I don't buy that, iPad or Tablet or whatever is mainstream.

Regardless, it sucks to think about it but June 2012 is going to be two years by the time we'll see bdver3b if it exists.


----------



## MrJava

I've had some recent correspondance with an AMD employee within engineering and steamroller seems exactly like what was presented during hot chips last year.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> That would be nearly 2 years of development time for a revision of the chip small enough to not warrant a new code name. We also don't know if bdver3b was in development before that. However i'm not implying a complete re-work. As I said there's "abundant low hanging fruit" so it should be possible to get very good gains without massive re-working of the chip.
> 
> I guess what I'm trying to say is that bdver3a might have had some easy to fix problems that would net a lot of performance that someone like Keller would pick up on and others would miss, and AMD may have calculated it would be best to can bdver3a in some markets, develop bdver3b.
> 
> I do realize that 2 years to retail is not enough time to make drastic changes, but I would think of it more along the lines of a better stepping of a chip as opposed to a new microarchitecture.
> 
> It just means things will be interesting. Perhaps AMD will kind of mimic Intel with the "enthusiast" class being delayed from mainstream, but AMD might up the ante a little bit by making performance oriented changes to the architecture. It would make a lot of sense as Intel seems to be wanting to cram their laptop architecture into server chips and performance parts, and it's leaving a lot of people wanting more. That and it's not providing lucrative reasons for people to upgrade, from say SB overclocked to Haswell overclocked.
> 
> If AMD could deliver an enthusiast platform with 15% or so increase in performance per core a year while adding more cores or whatever, they'd give a lot of enthusiasts who want to buy new toys a reason to buy new toys, instead of buying "herp derp shake and bake raise dat multi i'm so enthusiast!!!" update that's 5% faster, you'd get something good.
> 
> Of course I'm assuming AMD is still going to care about their "enthusiast" market and they might give up completely.
> 
> Also, I always call it "enthusiast" because it's just a marketing term between each company and according to Intel, everyone who doesn't use LGA2011 is "mainstream". I don't buy that, iPad or Tablet or whatever is mainstream.
> 
> Regardless, it sucks to think about it but June 2012 is going to be two years by the time we'll see bdver3b if it exists.


----------



## sdlvx

I don't get how you guys get AMD to talk to you. Whenever I ask them for hints about upcoming products they ignore me and feed me marketing stuff. I'm always left with my own conjecture of what I've heard from other people.


----------



## glussier

Take everything people say with a grain of salt.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Take everything people say with a grain of salt.


agreed amd I keeping everything so tight lipped that most is conjecture


----------



## Seronx

Steamroller Rev A and Steamroller Rev B have different macros.


----------



## MrJava

Don't email marketing people.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I don't get how you guys get AMD to talk to you. Whenever I ask them for hints about upcoming products they ignore me and feed me marketing stuff. I'm always left with my own conjecture of what I've heard from other people.


----------



## MrJava

For sure, take Seronx's posts with a few tablespoons of salt.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *glussier*
> 
> Take everything people say with a grain of salt.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't see the need for a "rework". People have to remember that Bulldozer is still a relatively fresh uarch, it was designed pretty much from the ground up. It will take a while for it to mature. I mean, isn't Intel's current line still based off P3? We'll see what AMD does with their modular design in the future.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't see the need for a "rework". People have to remember that Bulldozer is still a relatively fresh uarch, it was designed pretty much from the ground up. It will take a while for it to mature. I mean, isn't Intel's current line still based off P3? We'll see what AMD does with their modular design in the future.


No offense, but were you around before Intel "tick-tock"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4#Processor_cores

That's a lot of micro-architectures and changes to the marchs (like adding HT) in a span of 5 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_3

Pentium 3: 4 micro-archs in 3 years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64

Athlon 64: 7 micro-archs/changes to chip in ~3 years.

micro-architectures being released so slow is somewhat of a new phenomenon. Things have slowed down a lot, and I don't believe it's much of a coincidence that sales have slowed as well because we're not seeing updates to products which will motivate people to upgrade.

Just for fun, I found this page listing Athlon steppings: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%2064%203000+%20-%20ADA3000DIK4BI%20%28ADA3000BIBOX%29.html


----------



## Seronx

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7290/9739490498_5d42bfba23_o_d.png

You can tell even Bulldozer/Orochi to Piledriver/Trinity is different. Bulldozer is the one with the most dead space and Steamroller is the one with the least dead space.
Steamroller <--> Piledriver
Bulldozer


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> No offense, but were you around before Intel "tick-tock"?
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4#Processor_cores
> 
> That's a lot of micro-architectures and changes to the marchs (like adding HT) in a span of 5 years.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_3
> 
> Pentium 3: 4 micro-archs in 3 years
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64
> 
> Athlon 64: 7 micro-archs/changes to chip in ~3 years.
> 
> micro-architectures being released so slow is somewhat of a new phenomenon. Things have slowed down a lot, and I don't believe it's much of a coincidence that sales have slowed as well because we're not seeing updates to products which will motivate people
> to upgrade.
> Just for fun, I found this page listing Athlon steppings: http://
> www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-
> 
> Athlon%2064%203000+%20-
> %20ADA3000DIK4BI%20%28ADA3000BIBOX%29.html


Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis , which we are still in in spite
of the soothsaying mumbo-jumbo of the fed and bourgeois
economists, the amount of venture capital to fund innovation has
dried up quite a bit, the banks are more conservative in their loans
to industry, and there is far less capital going into the equities
markets. This has had a chilling effect on innovation as a whole.


----------



## glussier

Microprocessor steppings has nothing to do with new micro architecture. A steeping might implement a bug correction or veey minor revisions.


----------



## NaroonGTX

@sdlvx

I'm aware of that, but wasn't my point. There are many factors as to why it takes longer for revisions in uarchs to release nowadays. Also, as has been said, steppings don't really have much to do with new uarchs. A new stepping might fix a bug (like the Phenom I TLB bug), might introduce better power efficiencies, higher clocks, things of that nature.


----------



## itomic

So, what are latest news on Steamroller ? Relase date and MBO socket ??


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> So, what are latest news on Steamroller ? Relase date and MBO socket ??


all we know right now is about kavari.. there has been no further updates from d.. waiting on roadmaps


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> So, what are latest news on Steamroller ? Relase date and MBO socket ??


Steamroller is socket FM2+. There are boards already making their way onto the market available to buy. We should see chips by the end of 2013 to early 2014.


----------



## itomic

Thats Kaveri u r talking about, not Steamroller.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller is the name of x86 CPU cores inside Kaveri, otherwise the newest revision of the Bulldozer architecture.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> Thats Kaveri u r talking about, not Steamroller.


Kaveri is Steamroller. AMD has no plans for a Steamroller FX.


----------



## itomic

I know that Kaveri has Steamroller cores, but i was thinkg 8 core FX series. "AMD has no plans for a Steamroller FX." Is that official ??


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Opcode*
> 
> Kaveri is Steamroller. AMD has no plans for a Steamroller FX.


you seriously believe that there won't be an AM3+ cpu?

I don't.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> I know that Kaveri has Steamroller cores, but i was thinkg 8 core FX series. "AMD has no plans for a Steamroller FX." Is that official ??


nothing is official. It holds the same weight as pildriver fx was cancelled.. and we ser what happened there


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> I know that Kaveri has Steamroller cores, but i was thinkg 8 core FX series. "AMD has no plans for a Steamroller FX." Is that official ??


It's not official, we just don't have any road maps or anything pointing to a Steamroller FX existing. If AMD had any plans at all at releasing a Steamroller FX, word would of leaked by now. So I wouldn't expect one at all, AMD is most likely going to skip this generation and maybe bring back FX with Excavator. AMD is moving to APU only, which is imo one of the smartest moves. As GPGPU will slay any traditional serial computing any day. Time for a new software design, time for a new superior architecture.


----------



## MasterCyclone3D

I hate APU it old tech and boring and waste of time and energy and heat and money for desktop and not the top of the line.. No reason to have a GPU on a CPU have to upgrade every when something can't handle anything. It great for laptop. I can see why it cheap and why two gaming consoles buying these to rip people off. If they can make video card into a CPU that small and less watts then they could just build GPU on a socket die and never have to worry about PCIE and never look back. I would like to see Desktop G34 socket with 8 - 24 core that are 32mb cache for L1 and L2 and L3 and DDR3/DDr4 quad channel memory support desktop/workstation CPU with a new chipset for motherboard that handle 128 lane and 12 USB support and 12 SATA support and other as well. I would called the new CPU (Caterpillar) vs Steamroller. AMD getting nothing to be hot air lol. If I was the CEO I would know better to keep up with intel and be affordable price for consumer.







I guess I can dream a little.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MasterCyclone3D*
> 
> I hate APU it old tech and boring and waste of time and energy and heat and money for desktop and not the top of the line.. No reason to have a GPU on a CPU have to upgrade every when something can't handle anything. It great for laptop. I can see why it cheap and why two gaming consoles buying these to rip people off. If they can make video card into a CPU that small and less watts then they could just build GPU on a socket die and never have to worry about PCIE and never look back. I would like to see Desktop G34 socket with 8 - 24 core that are 32mb cache for L1 and L2 and L3 and DDR3/DDr4 quad channel memory support desktop/workstation CPU with a new chipset for motherboard that handle 128 lane and 12 USB support and 12 SATA support and other as well. I would called the new CPU (Caterpillar) vs Steamroller. AMD getting nothing to be hot air lol. If I was the CEO I would know better to keep up with intel and be affordable price for consumer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess I can dream a little.


pure ignorance.. intel is an apu and it the top of the line even if you pay a pretty penny for it


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MasterCyclone3D*
> 
> I hate APU it old tech and boring and waste of time and energy and heat and money for desktop and not the top of the line.. No reason to have a GPU on a CPU have to upgrade every when something can't handle anything. It great for laptop. I can see why it cheap and why two gaming consoles buying these to rip people off. If they can make video card into a CPU that small and less watts then they could just build GPU on a socket die and never have to worry about PCIE and never look back. I would like to see Desktop G34 socket with 8 - 24 core that are 32mb cache for L1 and L2 and L3 and DDR3/DDr4 quad channel memory support desktop/workstation CPU with a new chipset for motherboard that handle 128 lane and 12 USB support and 12 SATA support and other as well. I would called the new CPU (Caterpillar) vs Steamroller. AMD getting nothing to be hot air lol. If I was the CEO I would know better to keep up with intel and be affordable price for consumer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess I can dream a little.


From your post, most notably the first sentence and final suggestion, I can only conclude that you're trolling right now. Nevertheless, if you aren't, and rather are misinformed or simply ignorant of APUs' purpose and true potential, I highly suggest you read the following: Heterogeneous System Architecture. Put simply, APUs and HSA are the biggest computing innovation in many, many years; as well as easily among the biggest programming innovations of all time.

Also, some quick questions: if APUs are "old tech", why did they just start showing up in 2011? If they are a "waste", why is AMD now developing server APUs, and why is Intel creating their own GPGPU alternative, albeit inferior to HSA, in the form of Quicksync? Why are ARM, Qualcomm, Samsung, TI, LG, and a huge number of other corporations and groups supporting the HSA Foundation if HSA has no point?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller FX is a mystery. It goes both ways ~ no confirmation that there *will* be one, and no confirmation that there *won't* be one.

I don't think they would randomly skip SR FX and then bring it back with Excavator. The inverse is most likely true, SR FX being the last CPU-only FX chip and then Excavator is when they are all APU's.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Steamroller FX is a mystery. It goes both ways ~ no confirmation that there *will* be one, and no confirmation that there *won't* be one.
> 
> I don't think they would randomly skip SR FX and then bring it back with Excavator. The inverse is most likely true, SR FX being the last CPU-only FX chip and then Excavator is when they are all APU's.


That is my thoughts as well


----------



## MrJava

Seeing that the warsaw opterons were piledriver based should've killed any hope for "SR FX", at least in 2014 on AM3+.

It's likely that a die with 4+ SR modules exists in some state of development, but its not simply vishera w/ steamroller cores instead. They may have added onboard PCIe, HT 4.0 or some other features which would prevent releasing the product for existing sockets (AM3+ and G34/C32).

There's always the possibility of a 3 module APU next year anyway.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Steamroller FX is a mystery. It goes both ways ~ no confirmation that there *will* be one, and no confirmation that there *won't* be one.
> 
> I don't think they would randomly skip SR FX and then bring it back with Excavator. The inverse is most likely true, SR FX being the last CPU-only FX chip and then Excavator is when they are all APU's.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The Warsaw chips being Piledriver-based is really the only thing anyone has to go on in regards to there not being a SR FX version. There's nothing stopping them from making a SR-based FX chip without deriving it from a server version.

If it's true that AMD is implementing HDL in Kaveri, there could very well be even a four module part, which would eliminate the need of an FX equivalent.


----------



## Seronx

More or less there is always going to be a pure CPU HPC/VM part that will spawn an FX model.

Warsaw is mostly a last hoorah for the Open 3.0 modular server. Where the server with Steamroller will bring the Open 4.0 modular server.

Warsaw - (releases with Kaveri)
12/16 Core SKUs, 32 nm PDSOI HDL+Piledriver Rev E cores
IOMMU 1.26, SR5690/SR5670, SP5100
Socket G34, DDR3

Boulder - (releases with Carrizo)
12/16/20 Core SKUs, 20 nm ETSOI HDL+Steamroller Rev D cores
IOMMU 2.5+, iNB, iSB
Socket X, DDR4


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The Warsaw chips being Piledriver-based is really the only thing anyone has to go on in regards to there not being a SR FX version.


There is also the fact that since the new CEO took over the Steamroller FX processors were actually removed from the desktop roadmap, as well as the Steamroller server version. Then you add that we haven't even heard the slightest rumor of a core codename and AMD employees always wanting to dodge around the question would give strong probability to there not being a Steamroller based FX processor on AM3+ anytime soon if at all. Most likely with the change coming change to 28nm, then moving to Bulk, and moving to high density libraries AMD probably wants to get things going well in a couple CPU areas instead of trying to do all platforms all at once. It is took big a challenge for their limited budget. Probably why you see a Piledriver refresh using some of the new tech before then moving on to steamroller cores based on the same process tech. AMD also has to change from gate first to gate last sometime soon.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Did they ever even have SR FX on any roadmaps? Serious question.


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> Thats Kaveri u r talking about, not Steamroller.


See below.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Steamroller is the name of x86 CPU cores inside Kaveri, otherwise the newest revision of the Bulldozer architecture.


Steamroller is the core. Kaveri is the chip. There is not a Steamroller FX code name as of yet, so lets call it 'SRFX' so there is no confusion as to wth we are talking about.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Did they ever even have SR FX on any roadmaps? Serious question.


About this time last year they had a roadmap showing steamroller would be the last chip on AM3+. Excavator would be on a new socket.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Ah yes, I remember that. AMD said that AM3+ would receive one more chip after Vishera. And since technically FM2+ is a new socket, we already know Carrizo (powered by Excavator) will be on that platform as well. The super-clocked Piledriver's were still Vishera, so that couldn't have been the "one last chip" they were talking about. Only other possible candidate would be SR FX.


----------



## Seronx

Carrizo is Steamroller with enhancements to better utilize 28nm.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The Warsaw chips being Piledriver-based is really the only thing anyone has to go on in regards to there not being a SR FX version. There's nothing stopping them from making a SR-based FX chip without deriving it from a server version.
> 
> If it's true that AMD is implementing HDL in Kaveri, there could very well be even a four module part, which would eliminate the need of an FX equivalent.


I think 3 modules would be quite possible given that it appeared in one early "BIOS and Kernel Developer Guide" for kaveri that BSN leaked.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Ah yes, I remember that. AMD said that AM3+ would receive one more chip after Vishera. And since technically FM2+ is a new socket, we already know Carrizo (powered by Excavator) will be on that platform as well. The super-clocked Piledriver's were still Vishera, so that couldn't have been the "one last chip" they were talking about. Only other possible candidate would be SR FX.


At the beginning of the year we "knew" that kaveri would be on FM2 because FM2 was supposed to have some longevity according to AMD.
You shouldn't taken AMD's forward looking statements as gospel.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Something you guys might be interested in.

AMD Lowers Its Dependence On PCs With An Enhanced Embedded Portfolio
Quote:


> Earlier this week, leading PC microprocessor manufacturer AMD (AMD) disclosed its future road-map for the fast growing embedded computing market. In addition to new improved x86 processors the company unveiled its first ARM-technology based processor, extending its ambidextrous strategy to embedded markets. It is now the first company to offer its customers both ARM and x86 architecture based solutions for low-power and high-performance embedded compute designs.
> 
> In an effort to reduce its dependence on the declining traditional PC market, AMD has increased its focus on new growth markets. Until last year, the company derived close to 95% of its revenue from the traditional PC market. However, as part of its restructuring efforts it intends to derive 40%-50% of its revenue from high growth business, including embedded solutions, semi-custom, ultra-low power client, professional graphics and dense server, in the next two to three years. AMD claims to be on track to derive 20% of its revenue from these non-traditional PC markets by the end of this year. [1]
> 
> How Big Is The Embedded Processors Market ?
> 
> The embedded processors segment is a fast growing market with the embedded x86 market slated to reach $7 billion by 2016. [2] As per a recent VDC Research report, the market for traditional and intelligent embedded CPU systems will grow 36% in the next few years, from 330 million units in 2013 to over 450 million units by 2016. The x86 and ARM architecture together are estimated to account for 82% of the total addressable market. [3]
> 
> AMD's Embedded Processor Market Lineup
> 
> AMD's new product lineup includes four new processors which will start shipping next year onward -
> 
> 1. Hierofalcon CPU SoC Family: It is AMDs first ARM-based platform which targets growth in embedded data center applications, communications infrastructure and industrial solutions. The ARM processors are expected to start shipping by the second half of 2014.
> 
> 2. Bald Eagle APU & CPU: This next generation APU/CPU lineup will be based on AMD's x86 microprocessor architecture code-named Steamroller. The processors will target the digital signage and embedded digital gaming segments and will be available in the first half of 2014.
> 
> 3. Step Eagle APU SoC: This further extends the performance and low-power range of AMDs current Embedded G-Series APU SoC platform. Boasting of enhanced features and better performance-per-watt, these processors are designed for low-power embedded applications.
> 
> 4. Adelaar Discrete GPU: This is AMD's next-generation discrete Radeon GPU specifically designed for embedded applications. The GPUs will start shipping in the first half of 2014.
> 
> With the addition of the above products, AMD now has a broad range of embedded processors for different segments in its portfolio, offering a number of price, performance and power options to meet the needs of embedded designers. The company intends to take on the different segments in the embedded market by offering its customers a range of solutions to chose from - from low-power to high-performance - with a broad ecosystem of software and hardware partners supporting multiple operating systems including Windows and Linux.
> 
> We estimate embedded processors to contribute around 16% to AMD's valuation and forecast revenue from this division to cross $1 billion over our review period.


----------



## sdlvx

@Abundant Cores

That is good to know. AMD is diversifying but note how they claim that they want to lower dependence on traditional PCs instead of abandon it entirely.

I haven't seen anyone admit it yet but AMD is basically copying Intel's plans, it's just AMD's high end is lower than Intel's high end.

Intel focuses on mobile the most and you can see it by how their fabrication changes and architecture changes are oriented around lowering power consumption. Then, once Intel can cram a bunch of cores onto a die, they release that architecture to the "enthusiasts."

Intel is doing what everyone says AMD is going to be doing already, but they just don't realize it. We will probably see AMD do the same thing. Focus on APUs and embedded the most, while letting things trickle over to "enthusiast" after some time.

No one has realized it yet though from what I've seen, and they're assuming that AMD focusing on APUs, mobile, embedded, etc means that high end is going to die. Intel focuses just fine on mobile parts and they have no problem maintaining an enthusiast platform.

I have heard that AMD is recommending that you pair their FirePro cards with Xeons, and I'm going to say that it's safe to assume that AMD doesn't want that to keep happening. They want their own platform clearly, why else have Radeon SSDs and Radeon RAM? So you can pair your AMD FirePro, Radeon RAM, and Radeon SSD with an Intel Xeon?

One of those does not belong in a platform, can you spot it?

Not to mention if AMD controls the tools for HSA, they're going to be able to add optimizations for their own CPUs as well. HSA is more about AMD gaining control of software from Intel with ICC and MSVC making poor code for their products.

As a consumer running Gentoo and FX, AMD getting software to favor their CPUs would be a massive jump in performance, even on the same silicon. GCC always gets branded as a crappy compiler by Windows kiddos and my FX destroys in Gentoo. 60% faster in Lame, 10% faster in x264 (it has a lot of tuned assembly), 100%+ faster in Blender.

AMD simply providing the proper compilers to software vendors would make AMD chips look ridiculously better, even in CPU only situations.


----------



## Konbad

Here is hoping AMD is planing xfire with ANY R9 Generation and Beyond GPU. that is about their only saving grace


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> @Abundant Cores
> 
> That is good to know. AMD is diversifying but note how they claim that they want to lower dependence on traditional PCs instead of abandon it entirely.
> 
> I haven't seen anyone admit it yet but AMD is basically copying Intel's plans, it's just AMD's high end is lower than Intel's high end.
> 
> Intel focuses on mobile the most and you can see it by how their fabrication changes and architecture changes are oriented around lowering power consumption. Then, once Intel can cram a bunch of cores onto a die, they release that architecture to the "enthusiasts."
> 
> Intel is doing what everyone says AMD is going to be doing already, but they just don't realize it. We will probably see AMD do the same thing. Focus on APUs and embedded the most, while letting things trickle over to "enthusiast" after some time.
> 
> No one has realized it yet though from what I've seen, and they're assuming that AMD focusing on APUs, mobile, embedded, etc means that high end is going to die. Intel focuses just fine on mobile parts and they have no problem maintaining an enthusiast platform.
> 
> I have heard that AMD is recommending that you pair their FirePro cards with Xeons, and I'm going to say that it's safe to assume that AMD doesn't want that to keep happening. They want their own platform clearly, why else have Radeon SSDs and Radeon RAM? So you can pair your AMD FirePro, Radeon RAM, and Radeon SSD with an Intel Xeon?
> 
> One of those does not belong in a platform, can you spot it?
> 
> Not to mention if AMD controls the tools for HSA, they're going to be able to add optimizations for their own CPUs as well. HSA is more about AMD gaining control of software from Intel with ICC and MSVC making poor code for their products.
> 
> As a consumer running Gentoo and FX, AMD getting software to favor their CPUs would be a massive jump in performance, even on the same silicon. GCC always gets branded as a crappy compiler by Windows kiddos and my FX destroys in Gentoo. 60% faster in Lame, 10% faster in x264 (it has a lot of tuned assembly), 100%+ faster in Blender.
> 
> AMD simply providing the proper compilers to software vendors would make AMD chips look ridiculously better, even in CPU only situations.


I agree with just about everything you say there, and more, but the less said about Intel's compilers the better, whatever happens its as much about AMD needing to have good compilers of their own and widely in circulation as it 'also is' needing to improve their hardware, its not just about compilers.

I think the next few years are going to have interesting times ahead, also for us Desktop dinosaurs among this shift to mobile, IMO Desktops are far from dead, and some of that innovation will spill our way.

whats more, at the risk of the Wrath of Intel fans i think with what AMD are doing with HSA, OpenCL, GCN.... more of the interesting stuff will come from them, and while Intel will continue to dominate in many ways, i do also think AMD are finally coming to a crossroads, i fell it in my bones, AMD's performance per watt is going to increase greatly in the not to distant future.

they just feel like they have their mojo back and are about to announce that to the world.


----------



## MrJava

All of the major server players now have on-die PCIe, so the new socket and Boulder (or whatever it'll be called) can't come some enough.
For those questioning the value of on-die PCIe, AMD can:
- implement something similar to IBM's CAPI for shared coherent memory with discrete GPUs (and other accelerators)
- Freedom Fabric links
- use instead of hypertransport for CPU-CPU interconnect (??)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> More or less there is always going to be a pure CPU HPC/VM part that will spawn an FX model.
> 
> Warsaw is mostly a last hoorah for the Open 3.0 modular server. Where the server with Steamroller will bring the Open 4.0 modular server.
> 
> Warsaw - (releases with Kaveri)
> 12/16 Core SKUs, 32 nm PDSOI HDL+Piledriver Rev E cores
> IOMMU 1.26, SR5690/SR5670, SP5100
> Socket G34, DDR3
> 
> Boulder - (releases with Carrizo)
> 12/16/20 Core SKUs, 20 nm ETSOI HDL+Steamroller Rev D cores
> IOMMU 2.5+, iNB, iSB
> Socket X, DDR4


----------



## MasterCyclone3D

Thanks for the info guys







.. I know there something from approve of and some I don't.. But the new CEO made a new role and new path. Sorry for the trolling


----------



## Seronx

@Java
1. AMD's IOMMU 2.0+ does shared memory, hUMA is dependent on the GPU. VLIW4 doesn't support it but GCN does.
2. FreedomFabric is an additive southbridge.
3. Hypertransport has a lower latency than PCIe.


----------



## Geonerd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Put simply, APUs and HSA are the biggest computing innovation in many, many years; as well as easily among the biggest programming innovations of all time.


The current problem with APU/HSA is memory bandwidth. (A lack thereof!) High performance graphics and GPU-compute will both be choked by the current 128 bit, DDR3 bus that socket FM2+ provides. Look at any of the various distributed computer applications that run on a graphics card - all run MUCH better on high-bandwidth video cards. As for 128/ddr3 graphics cards, those tend to be the slowest, cheapest cards, inhabiting the very lowest reaches of the GPU ecosystem. I've no doubt that APU/HSA will eventually blossom, but at the moment I see it as somewhat of a joke.

Until such time as FM3/4 or whatever arrives, with quad DDR4 or better, AMD's lineup will have a HUGE hole. This market, for the midrange gamer/enthusiast, can only be met with a 'Big Core' CPU paired with a discrete graphics card. Piledriver is OK in this capacity, but can't be expected to hold the fort for much longer. Seriously, what is a mid-range buyer supposed to buy from AMD? A new system based on an FX 6 or 8 core makes little sense if the entire platform is dead in the water. If AMD would commit to AM3+/Steamroller, it would likely keep a fair number of people on-board during the APU transition. Their continued silence re. Steamroller is truly baffling - it's like they are TRYING to alienate their customers.


----------



## NaroonGTX

There are "BIG CORES" in the APU's. An A10 quadcore @ 4 GHz would perform the same as an FX-4300, even with the latter having the exclusive L3 cache. Most games don't use more than four cores even today, so I don't really understand people who make a big deal about this stuff and then act like the only competitive chip AMD has that's worth anything is the FX-8350. Even an i7 is just a quad-core with HT, where HT is a ******* joke and doesn't really do much in games at all. There are people building budget gaming rigs for themselves where they pick an Athlon x4 750/760k and pair it up with, for example, an HD 7870 and they aren't "bottlenecked" at all. Do the math.

As for HSA, it's in the beginning phases, *of course* it's not gonna blow the gates off right away. The memory bandwidth is a problem for sure, but even so, people with the A10-6800k who have fed it decent memory can play just about any game out there today with playable frames and adequate eyecandy at 720p and beyond. Kaveri with its 512 GCN core-based architecture will even blow Trinity/Richland away. You can't really sit there and expect on-die graphics like this to sit up there in the upper-mid/high-end/enthusiast discreet GPU segment right now, that's just ludicrous.

One thing is Kaveri's supposed capability to make use of GDDR5 memory. This means that in things like laptops, Kaveri would eliminate the need for a discreet GPU. The only problem with this is the amount of memory chips needed to provide an adequate amount of system memory... The most you'd probably see would be 4GB total.

As it stands, Piledriver is enough for whatever games are out there today. Just about anyone would upgrade to a hypothetical SR FX, but FFS -- until the new roadmaps come out, no one knows anything for now.


----------



## Konbad

support for gddr5 doesn't necessarily mean they will use it in a system, it might just mean they can xfire with higher end GPU's, all future games will be coded to make sue of as many cores as it can, simply because most games will be made for the consoles


----------



## NaroonGTX

As it stands, even with Llano and Trinity/Richland, the iGPU would use the memory of the discreet GPU in "dual graphics" mode. Those didn't have any GDDR5 memory controllers and it was still possible.

As for future games using more cores, yeah that's a given, but it doesn't necessarily mean massive performance boosts since most games are still predominately GPU-bound anyway. The industry moving forward to universal adoption of true multi-threaded coding in games is long overdue anyway. People with quad-cores will still be A-okay in those games.


----------



## Castaa

A little bit off topic but even Intel is reducing its commitment to desktop CPUs (like AMD appears to be with Steamroller)

*No* Broadwell (next gen Intel microarchitecture) for desktop, only a Haswell refresh.







Intel move to a new desktop architecture every two years now.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/32524-broadwell-won%E2%80%99t-make-it-to-desktop


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There are "BIG CORES" in the APU's. An A10 quadcore @ 4 GHz would perform the same as an FX-4300, even with the latter having the exclusive L3 cache. Most games don't use more than four cores even today, so I don't really understand people who make a big deal about this stuff and then act like the only competitive chip AMD has that's worth anything is the FX-8350.


BF4 recommended specs call for 3m/6c AMD chip. There is no room for APU there and APU class big core CPU would fall into "minimum requirements" for BF4. We are going to see AMD bundle BF4 with their high end dGPUs at a time when everyone is going "AMD IS GONNA GO APU ONLY!!!" when their best APU barely make minimum requirements for the game AMD is going to bundle. I really wouldn't be surprised if the whole "AMD IS DONE WITH FX" thing is a massive FUD campaign against AMD and it has no merit in reality what so ever.

As for the Broadwell not coming to desktop, there's a post floating around the news section that says it is coming afterall, but haswell refresh is still coming. This tells me that Haswell refresh will still be a better overclocker and that we'll see something similar to what happens in past Intel transitions to smaller nodes.

_Intel releases chip on smaller process

The chip can turbo higher and more often thanks to the smaller process

The chip gets benchmarked stock settings and the old and the new have the same base and turbo settings on the box

Everyone assumes that the turbo works the same because the base and maximum turbo numbers are the same on the box

Everyone goes "omg 5% faster!!!!!" when the performance gains come from a "hidden" higher clock rate thanks to turbo working better. Example is chip with 3.5ghz base, 3.9ghz turbo. Instead of only hitting 3.9ghz on one core, the new one does it on 3 or 4 cores no problem while the other one is at 3.5ghz.

They overclock their chips, disabling the advantage the new chip had with a better working turbo (and thus higher clock rate) and end up with something the same speed or slower._

Intel has some of these guys roped into sidegrades really well, and whenever it gets brought up and you post clock for clock comparisons which show IB being between -1% faster and 4% faster in rare occasions, but overall about even, rage ascends upon you.

However I do think that HSA is going to work out, but it's not going to replace traditional CPUs entirely.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> A little bit off topic but even Intel is reducing its commitment to desktop CPUs (like AMD appears to be with Steamroller)
> 
> *No* Broadwell (next gen Intel microarchitecture) for desktop, only a Haswell refresh.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Intel move to a new desktop architecture every two years now.
> 
> http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/32524-broadwell-won%E2%80%99t-make-it-to-desktop


reason they are holding back broadwell is simple, why push it out they can get performance increase by simply tweaking haswell they have no real competition why push themselves.. broadwell was shown working and shipping this year so there is no reason why it wouldn't be ready for mainstream socket Q2/Q3 next year unless intel doesn't want it to be released.

its not because they are downsizing PC market intel isnt picky they want ALL the markets and have the Bankroll and resources to do it


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> BF4 recommended specs call for 3m/6c AMD chip. There is no room for APU there and APU class big core CPU would fall into "minimum requirements" for BF4.


This doesn't mean if someone has a quad-core APU, that the game will run like crap. If someone has an A10 as a CPU, and an HD 7850 as their GPU, they will still run the game just fine. The final game is a lot better optimized than the alpha was. Even BF3 only really starts stressing out the CPU once you get into a server with 40~64 people. I really doubt people with quadcores/APU's will run into massive issues on the CPU side.
Quote:


> I really wouldn't be surprised if the whole "AMD IS DONE WITH FX" thing is a massive FUD campaign against AMD and it has no merit in reality what so ever.


It pretty much is. Even if there won't be a SR FX or it won't come out for some time, AMD isn't gonna suddenly stop selling their Zambezi and Vishera processors. They will still play modern games just fine (moreso Vishera than Zambezi, but whatever lol.)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> No Broadwell (next gen Intel microarchitecture) for desktop, only a Haswell refresh. wheee.gif Intel move to a new desktop architecture every two years now.


This is odd, I saw a post in the news section earlier today that said Broadwell is coming to the desktop after all (and that it will be in an LGA package after all as well.)


----------



## re73

It is quite interesting to read that big core/many core CPU's is not needed because the four core APU has the same cores and that it is enough for games.

Well I don't play really heavy games, does that imply that I don't need many cores in my CPU/APU?

No not really, I wan't a 4m/8c SR because I need the power when using software that scales really well on multiple cores. Well I guess that the answer to that will be "The APU will do that really well as soon as the GPU cores are used", sure, it will, but not until the program's support that, and if the APU's take off with Kaveri, that is really good, but the software will take time to adapt. My guess is at least 1-2 years before it get's rolling really good, during that time, AMD (and I) need a big CPU.

When reading through this thread a lot is stated that FX is dead... I know that someone mentioned it before... if they switch name... then FX is dead... but that is only a name...

Do I care if it comes on AM3+? no, not at all, for me it can land on AM3+, AM4, FM2+, FM3 or whatever... I would most likely be more happy if it lands on a new socket, because that might mean DDR4 support... and better memory bandwidth









Edit: Spelling


----------



## Konbad

Their roadmap says differently but they might have posted it before they got broadwell working prototypes, broadwell is shipping this year for LP units so there it nothing stopping them releasing broadwell for 1150 next year other then them not wanting too i mean whats their competition they could easily release a haswell refresh with some minor tweaks and DDR4 support and people would still be all over it spending their money. Steamroller better be magnificent


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Well I don't play really heavy games, does that imply that I don't need many cores in my CPU/APU?
> 
> No not really, I wan't a 4m/8c SR because I need the power when using software that scales really well on multiple cores.


It's not certain if SR FX will ever exist at any point right now. If you need more cores, your only options are to get a Vishera octocore or go Intel and pay the premium to get their hexacore parts.


----------



## jesh462

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You meant FM2+ not AM2+. Some dying brain cells?


Ahahaha yes. I blame my stoner memory.


----------



## re73

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It's not certain if SR FX will ever exist at any point right now. If you need more cores, your only options are to get a Vishera octocore or go Intel and pay the premium to get their hexacore parts.


I know, I just wanted to highlight the fact that gaming isn't the only use of a performance CPU. And I know that I will have to either get a one year old product or go intel if no SR 4m/8c is released even if I would preffer to stay with AMD...


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *re73*
> 
> I know, I just wanted to highlight the fact that gaming isn't the only use of a performance CPU. And I know that I will have to either get a one year old product or go intel if no SR 4m/8c is released even if I would preffer to stay with AMD...


i would wait will haswell-e dropping 4 or 6 core and making it 6 or 8 core assuming that they get the 10% performance increase overall with 6 cores the additional 2 cores will put those high end CPU's even further apart i hope steamroller is as fast as the engineers boast @ 45% but time will tell


----------



## Pro3ootector

The main reason for AMD focus on APU's is to make better revenue from mainstream, not to quit from the high-end cpu market. APU is a good value procesor which gives more people a reason to replace their old PC's.


----------



## NaroonGTX

It makes sense because they make more sales from APU's than they do the FX chips. The thing about the Haswell-E chips is that they will be overpriced to the moon. An eight-core chip would probably be more than $1000.


----------



## rusky1

Are there any official streamroller benches out yet? A Google search provided this:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2328076

Showing a 9.92pts 4ghz score for the new chips. Have these numbers already been debunked?


----------



## NaroonGTX

@rusky1

The poster admitted a few posts in that he basically generated those scores from nowhere. There haven't been any actual benches or anything yet, at least not made public. If there were any, you could be sure that one of us would have posted it here by now, lol.

The only thing Steamroller-related that has been leaked were some benches of an ES (engineering-sample) of what is most definitely some type of lower-end SR part, it seemed to be an APU meant for notebooks or laptops. Besides that, we don't have anything... All we know is Kaveri is coming and another Steamroller-based server APU.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> i would wait will haswell-e dropping 4 or 6 core and making it 6 or 8 core assuming that they get the 10% performance increase overall with 6 cores the additional 2 cores will put those high end CPU's even further apart i hope steamroller is as fast as the engineers boast @ 45% but time will tell


You know throwing around incorrect information due to your negligence or ignorance is not ok. There has been no claim that steamroller would be 45% faster than Piledriver. The claim was 25-30% on the upper end. That was just on a purported conversation that some user had with am AMD engineer nothing verified.Where you pulled 45% from? I really do not respect people who throw numbers around like it is ok to lie.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think he was referring to this quote:
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Supposed AMD Engineer*
> "Steamroller is not Bulldozer Enhanced. F*** no. The layout might look the same but our LEGO blocks are completely different. When all is said and done we should get 45% improvement and this goes to show how the Bulldozer was f***** design. This is all what Bulldozer was supposed to be."


Source

Whether or not that quote is legit is unknown. It comes from Vr-Zone so that alone is enough to discredit it. While I do have every intention in the world of upgrading from my current Llano to Kaveri in the future, I'm not gonna be overly-optimistic about these "30%" and "45%" numbers that keep getting thrown around. What I will do is be realistic, and expect at minimum the 15% projected increase which has been the plan ever since bdver1 -- the 15% increase in perf/watt for each revision. If the 30% number is true for Steamroller, it must be 30% over Bulldozer, not Piledriver. I also have doubts that there has been a Steamroller v2 created.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I think he was referring to this quote:
> Source
> 
> Whether or not that quote is legit is unknown. It comes from Vr-Zone so that alone is enough to discredit it. While I do have every intention in the world of upgrading from my current Llano to Kaveri in the future, I'm not gonna be overly-optimistic about these "30%" and "45%" numbers that keep getting thrown around. What I will do is be realistic, and expect at minimum the 15% projected increase which has been the plan ever since bdver1 -- the 15% increase in perf/watt for each revision. If the 30% number is true for Steamroller, it must be 30% over Bulldozer, not Piledriver. I also have doubts that there has been a Steamroller v2 created.


That quote from VR-Zone is pure crap. No AMD engineer speaks like that. That 4 letter expletive is a giveaway.


----------



## MrJava

AMD's processors don't execute in a vacuum though. They've probably went a little more aggressive with the design of steamroller than originally planned and backtracked on some bulldozer philosophies (shared decode) in response to competitive pressure from intel.

Of course I don't expect 45% performance increases across the board, but you still might see it in some benchmarks.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I think he was referring to this quote:
> Source
> 
> Whether or not that quote is legit is unknown. It comes from Vr-Zone so that alone is enough to discredit it. While I do have every intention in the world of upgrading from my current Llano to Kaveri in the future, I'm not gonna be overly-optimistic about these "30%" and "45%" numbers that keep getting thrown around. What I will do is be realistic, and expect at minimum the 15% projected increase which has been the plan ever since bdver1 -- the 15% increase in perf/watt for each revision. If the 30% number is true for Steamroller, it must be 30% over Bulldozer, not Piledriver. I also have doubts that there has been a Steamroller v2 created.


----------



## asxx




----------



## NaroonGTX

^Can someone summarize what is said in that video, if they could be so kind? I have to watch my bandwidth usage right now, so I can't really watch vids at the moment.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> That quote from VR-Zone is pure crap. No AMD engineer speals like that. That 4 letter expletive is a giveaway.


That's what I was thinking. I really doubt any AMD employee would speak like that when being quoted, even if their identity was supposedly withheld. Any of Vr-Zone's "original" articles have zero credibility, the way I see it. Like how they recently stated Kaveri was delayed to like almost mid-2014, but couldn't show us the roadmaps because they were "heavily watermarked". What a joke.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> ^Can someone summarize what is said in that video, if they could be so kind? I have to watch my bandwidth usage right now, so I can't really watch vids at the moment.
> That's what I was thinking. I really doubt any AMD employee would speak like that when being quoted, even if their identity was supposedly withheld. Any of Vr-Zone's "original" articles have zero credibility, the way I see it. Like how they recently stated Kaveri was delayed to like almost mid-2014, but couldn't show us the roadmaps because they were "heavily watermarked". What a joke.


Some guy very keen to to say he's unbiased spent the whole video criticising AMD.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> ^Can someone summarize what is said in that video, if they could be so kind? I have to watch my bandwidth usage right now, so I can't really watch vids at the moment.


I agree with him that AM3+ is a dead socket, AMD will not spend any more RD money on that socket. All the evidence is there for all to see (nothing on the roadmaps, still essentially the same chipset that was released back in 2009 etc etc). I disagree with his idea that APU:s are a mistake, I think it is the only thing AMD will be able to sell in the future. I also wonder why he seems to think that AMD doesn't focus on their graphics, I think they have indeed had a lot of focus on their graphics division. Will AMD make money on the consoles (Xbone/PS4)? Who knows, we will see. However, the profit margins on consoles have been kinda slim. I agree with him that it is unrealistic to think that AMD will make gazillions of dollars of he consoles, the might make money, but not by a large margin.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It makes sense because they make more sales from APU's than they do the FX chips. The thing about the Haswell-E chips is that they will be overpriced to the moon. An eight-core chip would probably be more than $1000.


im confident the 8 core variant will slot in the same price bracket that the current lga 2011 4960x, i also don't think the console move was purely about profit it was to get games developers to focus on amd technologies and code specifically for that


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> im confident the 8 core variant will slot in the same price bracket that the current lga 2011 4960x, i also don't think the console move was purely about profit it was to get games developers to focus on amd technologies and code specifically for that


I agree with the AMDs console strategy. It wasn't about AMD hardware but a move to push or derail ICC stranglehold on the software market.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I agree with the AMDs console strategy. It wasn't about AMD hardware but a move to push or derail ICC stranglehold on the software market.


It may have also been an effort to familiarize devs with HSA, what with all the heterogeneous compute demos that accompanied the new consoles - especially the PS4.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I agree with you guys: The AMD console push wasn't for higher profit margins, it was to get devs familiar with HSA-style coding as well as getting them familiarized (or more accustomed to) coding for more than four cores. It was a smart move, and everyone will benefit from it in the long run regardless of what CPU they have (AMD or Intel).

As for the video, don't see why he would criticize APU's considering they are what is raking AMD tons of revenue right now.

AM3+ does seem to be a dead socket. AMD is pushing focus over to FM2/FM2+ right now. They made that statement that they are phasing out AM3 (not plus) and FM1 socket processors (most of the Llano's are already discontinued on Newegg). Seems the only reason they are keeping AM3+ around is for people who want more cores and they don't want to create a huge wave of negative publicity. If they were to come out and say AM3+ is dead, many would probably go over to Intel right then and there (or in the future.) It also seems evident that the previously-planned platform, 1090FX, was canceled a long time ago. In other words, there won't be an AM4.

If AMD does decide to release a SR FX, it *might* come to AM3+, but I wouldn't be shocked if there will be SR FX available on both FM2+ and AM3+. I don't think AMD won't ever make another octocore die based on a newer revision of Bulldozer. That would be lunacy.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I agree with you guys: The AMD console push wasn't for higher profit margins, it was to get devs familiar with HSA-style coding as well as getting them familiarized (or more accustomed to) coding for more than four cores. It was a smart move, and everyone will benefit from it in the long run regardless of what CPU they have (AMD or Intel).
> 
> As for the video, don't see why he would criticize APU's considering they are what is raking AMD tons of revenue right now.
> 
> AM3+ does seem to be a dead socket. AMD is pushing focus over to FM2/FM2+ right now. They made that statement that they are phasing out AM3 (not plus) and FM1 socket processors (most of the Llano's are already discontinued on Newegg). Seems the only reason they are keeping AM3+ around is for people who want more cores and they don't want to create a huge wave of negative publicity. If they were to come out and say AM3+ is dead, many would probably go over to Intel right then and there (or in the future.) It also seems evident that the previously-planned
> platform, 1090FX, was canceled a long time ago. In other words,
> there won't be an AM4.
> 
> If AMD does decide to release a SR FX, it *might* come to AM3+,
> but I wouldn't be shocked if there will be SR FX available on both
> FM2+ and AM3+. I don't think AMD won't ever make another
> octocore die based on a newer revision of Bulldozer. That would
> be lunacy.


AMD does make more money on apus but the profit margin is
lower. The 8 core cpu market is smaller thus the company needed
to broaden its market. But to abandon the mid tier cpu market
altogether would be a great error for AMD. If they can go into the
black perhaps in one to two years they can make a comeback in
the mid tier with superior products with 6 to 8 cores. The earliest I
see that happening is with Excavator.


----------



## schmotty

The consoles may not be the biggest profit maker for AMD, but they aren't LOSING money on them. These are going to put them in the black, giving them a positive price/earnings ratio that will give confidence to investors and boost capitol. And I dont think AM3+ is dead yet, I can see another release for it Q2-2014 maybe, because I don't think they currently have the budget for a new chipset & socket development since they have been focused on FM2+ and Kaveri. And since they are pushing for HSA it makes sense to sell chips that can take advantage of the tech without requiring a discreet GPU, so I don't see them continuing to make chips that don't have iGPU, except for the server market. I know that there are people that will buy an 8-core CPU (I would love one) but there also people who would buy an avocado flavored Twinkie, but that doesn't mean it's profitable for a company to make one.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Man this thread is a rollercoaster, and it ended up right in the opinion that I got flacked for at the beginning.







lol

I like AMD's strategy, it should prove most profitable for them. But they are going to fail miserably if they can't execute releases on the dates they set for themselves. What's the point of a goal you set, but never plan on achieving? Nothing. In fact it pisses a lot of people off and discourages them from trusting the products of your company; whether it's Intel, AMD or Mr. Johnny's Candy shop on the corner of the street.

But that makes me wonder, haven't they already worked out the design for Steamroller cores? And if they have what's the hold up? Is it their fabricator that is causing all of the delays? I heard that Global Foundries wasn't doing that well financially, or maybe it had something to do with the equipment, can't really remember right now, but does anybody have any ideas as to why they are delaying it's release other than a repeat of the terrible management they seem to have always had?


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> If AMD does decide to release a SR FX, it *might* come to AM3+, but I wouldn't be shocked if there will be SR FX available on both FM2+ and AM3+. I don't think AMD won't ever make another octocore die based on a newer revision of Bulldozer. That would be lunacy.


Observation 1:
If you read the fine print in AMD's Hotchips Steamroller slides, many of the large gains (25,30% ...) occurred while running "server workloads including transaction processing".

Observation 2:
AMD's big server dies are the same as their big desktop dies.

Question: So if AMD had the opportunity to release a chip as competitive as that into the high margin server market, why is Warsaw a Piledriver part?
Answer: Their is no steamroller die/chip compatible with existing infrastructure (AM3+/G34/C32).

Observation 3:
C32 opterons (include 3.1GHz 8-core) have been replaced on the 2014 roadmap by Berlin. The is a 4 (and possibly 6) core steamroller chip.

Observation 4:
Apple's Cyclone core trading blows with sandy bridge clocked 23% higher.

Cortex A57 should have similar "IPC" (god I hate this term) but at higher frequencies - 2GHz+.

Observation 5:
Two new server products are supposed to be introduced in H2 2014.
- Warsaw (possibly the result of better yields/bin sort)
- Seattle (8 - 16 cortex a57's + PCIe 3.0 + Freedom Fabric)
Was 8-core steamroller sacrificed for Seattle?
Is AMD betting on big orders from the Facebook and Google's of the world?

Conclusion 1: Steamroller is quite good for servers, perhaps not as good for multimedia but still better than predecessors.
Conclusion 2: AMD thought they would have the best bang for R&D buck by focusing development on steamroller APU and by trying to get a head start in the ARM microserver world.
Hypothesis: Steamroller comes in two phases: an improvement to the module (cores + L2 cache) in 2014 APUs, and surrounding infrastructure (L3 cache, L4 cache?, northbridge, accelerators, PCIe, HT controllers) in 2015 server chip/APU


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Man this thread is a rollercoaster, and it ended up right in the opinion that I got flacked for at the beginning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> lol
> 
> I like AMD's strategy, it should prove most profitable for them. But they are going to fail miserably if they can't execute releases on the dates they set for themselves. What's the point of a goal you set, but never plan on achieving? Nothing. In fact it pisses a lot of people off and discourages them from trusting the products of your company; whether it's Intel, AMD or Mr. Johnny's Candy shop on the corner of the street.
> 
> But that makes me wonder, haven't they already worked out the design for Steamroller cores? And if they have what's the hold up? Is it their fabricator that is causing all of the delays? I heard that Global Foundries wasn't doing that well financially, or maybe it had something to do with the equipment, can't really remember right now, but does anybody have any ideas as to why they are delaying it's release other than a repeat of the terrible management they seem to have always had?


There is no delay from what had been announced almost a year ago. It will start shipping in December to OEM's and in January to resellers like Newegg, Amazon, Tiger Direct.


----------



## sdlvx

AMD had made a big ruckus over being a company that "creates building blocks" with chips. If AMD is developing SR for APUs, the SR module is just a block to put in a product which could easily be a CPU.

HSA is about getting software wins. I was only like 15 when I was in the Athlon/P4 era and when I was young and stupid P4 looked pretty good looking at those reviews. AMD needs to get away from that, and it definitely still exists. When I went to reddit there were swarms of kids who would take Pentium G over APU or Phenom.

I see it happen quite often and I am going to risk offending a lot of folks, but it seems like it's still in effect as it seems like those who are die-hard Intel only folks are the least educated about hardware and software.


----------



## NaroonGTX

@MrJava

You raise many good points. I think I said elsewhere before (don't know if it was this forum or another) that AMD must've felt confident enough in their SR-based APU server chip that they felt a new octocore-based one wouldn't be needed. I know that the FX dies are basically the same as the Opteron dies, but for whatever reason it seems AMD doesn't feel like doing a SR replacement for that. This will upset a lot of AMD fans, methinks.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> This is for LGA 2011 right? No quad-core with hyperthreading on LGA 115x beats the number crunching power and pure bandwidth of SR5690/FX-8350.
> More single threaded performance and less cores equals better parallelization.


By your logic let's all revert to dual core chips for better parallelization. That and a slow boat to China will do me a lot of good. Your logic is moronic.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> There is no delay from what had been announced almost a year ago. It will start shipping in December to OEM's and in January to resellers like Newegg, Amazon, Tiger Direct.


Yes for desktop(FX), but wasn't Kaveri supposed to be released this summer along side Haswell?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Yes for desktop(FX), but wasn't Kaveri supposed to be released this summer along side Haswell?


Nah that was Kabini which has jaguar cores.
Though that still is overpriced here I want a netbook with a powerfull battery so bad.
20 hours on a single battery under load sounds like a wet dream to me.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Nah that was Kabini which has jaguar cores.
> Though that still is overpriced here I want a netbook with a powerfull battery so bad.
> 20 hours on a single battery under load sounds like a wet dream to me.










Too many names lol

Well I have a feeling you won't have to wait long for your dream very long the way technology is shaping up to be, battery life and TDP are very important factors in the industry, and both AMD and Intel are trading blows when it comes to the tablet/netbook market. Competition=faster advancements, or so the model goes.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> @MrJava
> 
> You raise many good points. I think I said elsewhere before (don't know if it was this forum or another) that AMD must've felt confident enough in their SR-based APU server chip that they felt a new octocore-based one wouldn't be needed. I know that the FX dies are basically the same as the Opteron dies, but for whatever reason it seems AMD doesn't feel like doing a SR replacement for that. This will upset a lot of AMD fans, methinks.


I am not trying to say you're wrong, I'm just trying to say that your solution isn't the only one.

A lack of SR CPU part can also mean that it is getting pushed back until dCPU and dGPU HSA becomes a thing. AMD needs as many people with HSA as possible. They are beating the chicken and egg theory of software/hardware where software devs don't want to develop software for hardware no one has and customers don't want to buy hardware with no software. APUs are strongest for AMD right now so it makes sense for them to FOCUS on APUs to gain rapid HSA compliant market share and then transfer over to the "less important" markets like dCPU + dGPU HSA.

IMO Warsaw is a stopgap to fill in a void between Piledriver and the new platform that will launch which supports HSA between dGPU and dCPU. As I've said before, AMD claiming to focus on APUs doesn't mean they are giving up on everything else, it just means that everything else is lower priority.

I also don't remember if I posted this on Tom's under a different handle or it was here, but GPUs make good money for AMD with a ~330mm^2 for Tahiti and a price range of $249 to $399. The volume between 6 cores and 8 cores on Steam Hardware Survey is actually higher than volume of 7970 and 7950. AMD could make more money off of dCPUs if they really wanted to and they could deliver CPU products that fell into $199 to $399 price range on a ~300mm^2 die. I realize I am neglecting Intel Hex and Intel Octo but regarding searching amazon and newegg by popularity, FX 6000 series is far, far more popular than Intel Hex.

I just hope AMD is smart enough to unify server and enthusiast platforms. It would make a lot less work for them as they'd just have to keep up a single platform for both markets (which would be HSA accelerated, btw). It'd also open the door for Opterons for consumers and workstations again as well as for enthusiast dual socket boards which could be overclocked, and it would be trivial for a company like Asus or Gigabyte to make an enthusiast level dual socket board as the tools provided by AMD would already be there due to the platform already supporting server CPUs. Of course, assuming they'd want to take the risk like that as those platforms never really make it. But my point is that AMD could provide the POSSIBILITY of this happening for enthusiast quite easily if big x86 server and enthusiast desktop platform is unified as one platform, and Intel would be unable to respond _at all_ as their Xeons can't be overclocked.

My theory depends entirely on what AMD does with their GPUs. If we see Hawaii and company come with HSA features there should be a good possibility of what I see happening actually happening.

The scenario I am seeing in my head given what I'm suggesting is that AMD releases new GPUs and they announce they come with HSA features like being able to use the HSA memory architecture of PS4. Then, shortly after, AMD announces desktop lineup and says new platform that supports HSA features of the new GPUs and talks about how great it is for next generation gaming.

Now, keep in mind while all desktop market is shrinking, gaming DT market is growing and AMD is aware of this. It takes a quick google search if you don't believe me.

But regardless, if AMD does this, they would then have a gaming platform where they have the ONLY HSA accelerated PC platform in existence. Meaning you'd HAVE to go AMD CPU + AMD GPU to use HSA features of console ports. And to top it off, the whole platform would probably be ideally set up as AMD CPU + AMD GPU for rendering + AMD GPU for HSA/GPGPU.

And if AMD threw in bundles like they have been, that platform would be a dream come true.

Anyways, AMD has the potential to become _the_ gaming platform. They also have the potential to make profits off of their CPUs no problem. I am guessing that AMD is quiet right now because they are waiting to announce a new platform with HSA support like I'm suggesting. If they announced it now, no one would care. It's too early. We haven't seen HSA used and we haven't seen HSA trickle over to gaming DT yet.

For me to be even on the right track we need to see either:

1. Hawaii and company support HSA and new platform is announced soon after.
2. GPU after Hawaii and company released soon (like next spring) and new platform announced then.

Regardless AMD needs to wait for software support to back them up. The longer they wait, and if they wait until software actually exists, the more demand for their product they will have.


----------



## Gnomepatrol

Well I finally gave up on AM3+ steamroller. Sold off my 8320 and sabertooth 990fx r2.0. Waiting for Kaveri to drop to see if I am going to go FM2+ or 1150. I just don't see AMD supporting multiple sockets anymore with their APU being their main focus. My 8320 was a ton of fun to play with too.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gnomepatrol*
> 
> Well I finally gave up on AM3+ steamroller. Sold off my 8320 and sabertooth 990fx r2.0. Waiting for Kaveri to drop to see if I am going to go FM2+ or 1150. I just don't see AMD supporting multiple sockets anymore with their APU being their main focus. My 8320 was a ton of fun to play with too.


Welcome to the club. Going to be selling my board/chip after my friends pays me back to pick up my avatar


----------



## CptDanko

Its been delayed, and their were rumors of it never coming out, VR tech was babbling about this, AMD already denied the claims of them giving up high end market.


----------



## MrJava

From the Linux Kernel Mailing List: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/8/2/516
Quote:


> Adding support for handling ECC error decoding for new F15 models.
> On newer models, support has been included for upto 4 DCT's,
> however, only DCT0 and DCT3 are currently configured. (Refer BKDG Section 2.10)
> There is also a new "Routing DRAM Requests" algorithm for this model.


So the 4 DCT (DRAM Controller) rumor basically applies to future APUs (probably Carizzo). A few ways of interpretting the above:
1. 4 DCTs on Kaveri die, two are disabled
2. 2 DCTs are present on Kaveri die, but northbridge supports up to 4

I'd say number two would make sense so that AMD would not have to re-engineer the northbridge to support quad channel DDR3/4; they would only need to change the memory controller.

From SiSoft: http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdee7d0e4dcedcbb984b492f792af9fb9caf7cf&l=en

Benchmark result for Kaveri variant with 832SP or 13CU. Appears in a device called BANTRY which is the codename for the Kaveri reference platform.
"KV SPECTRE DESKTOP 100W (1305); AMD Radeon R5 M200 Series (832SP 13C 600MHz, 3GB DDR3 1.6GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics) (OpenCL)"

Edit: Doh, the above is probably just a low end radeon card in kaveri test system.


----------



## Opcode

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> From the Linux Kernel Mailing List: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/8/2/516
> So the 4 DCT (DRAM Controller) rumor basically applies to future APUs (probably Carizzo). A few ways of interpretting the above:
> 1. 4 DCTs on Kaveri die, two are disabled
> 2. 2 DCTs are present on Kaveri die, but northbridge supports up to 4
> 
> I'd say number two would make sense so that AMD would not have to re-engineer the northbridge to support quad channel DDR3/4; they would only need to change the memory controller.
> 
> From SiSoft: http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdee7d0e4dcedcbb984b492f792af9fb9caf7cf&l=en
> 
> Benchmark result for Kaveri variant with 832SP or 13CU. Appears in a device called BANTRY which is the codename for the Kaveri reference platform.
> "KV SPECTRE DESKTOP 100W (1305); AMD Radeon R5 M200 Series (832SP 13C 600MHz, 3GB DDR3 1.6GHz 64-bit, Integrated Graphics) (OpenCL)"
> 
> Edit: Doh, the above is probably just a low end radeon card in kaveri test system.


It could just be future prep for DDR4. As DDR4 uses a entire channel of its own for each dimm. Kaveri could be refreshed into Carizzo with a simple modification to support DDR4 and the addition of tweaked cores (probably tweaked SR, possibly EX).


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Edit: Doh, the above is probably just a low end radeon card in kaveri test system.


I thought Spectre was the high end codename?
EDIT: yep, Spectre is high end and Spooky is low end Kaveri.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1404574/steamroller/460#post_20697539

We already had this discussion and the drop about quad channel almost a month ago now, but since it is going again... it could possibly be four 32-bit channels, which is the same bit width as two 64-bit standard dual channel memory. I really hope it is quad 64-bit channels, but the quad 32 would be for something like GDDR5 controller since GDDR5 uses 32-bit wide channels.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I thought Spectre was the high end codename?


Spectre is the high-end iGPU, but that's in the APU's name, not the discrete GPU's (R5 M200).


----------



## Konbad

do you guys think AMD will show anything about steamroller at their event on the 25th in Hawaii?


----------



## MrJava

Unveil kaveri with a steve jobs style "one more thing ..."? Sure, I'd be up for that.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> do you guys think AMD will show anything about steamroller at their event on the 25th in Hawaii?


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> do you guys think AMD will show anything about steamroller at their event on the 25th in Hawaii?


No, but a surprise would be welcome.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> do you guys think AMD will show anything about steamroller at their event on the 25th in Hawaii?


Unlikely. They'll want to keep the focus on their new cards, not something that'll make them seem somewhat unnecessary.


----------



## Konbad

i wasn't saying for them to announce something but a update on schedules or a tidbit would be welcome


----------



## NaroonGTX

We won't get any updates until AMD releases the newer roadmaps, which should be sometime soon (before the year is over.)


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> do you guys think AMD will show anything about steamroller at their event on the 25th in Hawaii?


AMD is not Steve Jobs, even Apple now is not Steve jobs. It is has been stated umphteenth number of times according to the head of Global marketing for AMD John Taylor, the updated roadmap will be released between the end of October and the AMD Developers Conference (the APU Conference as they now call it) which will be held November 14th.


----------



## MrJava

There's a chance that a steamroller APU may get a design win the steambox(es).


----------



## NaroonGTX

@MrJava

That would be awesome. Though Gaben is a champion of Linux, AMD will have to get a move on with having better Linux driver development.


----------



## Konbad

Valve have been working closely with nVidia for their openGL ports so i see them taking something from their camp, im all tingly though a world where all games run on OpenGL and not DX


----------



## NaroonGTX

I too would love a universal transition to OpenGL. I fail to understand how there are people who think DirectX is actually superior to OpenGL.


----------



## Konbad

i just dislike how MS handles D3D, attempting to foce people to upgrade to a newer OS, i would stop playing games before i moved to windows 8 in its current format and that goes for 9 if its more of the same


----------



## NaroonGTX

I remember the Halo 2 fiasco...Where MS claimed that it wasn't possible to run it on WinXP and thus people needed to upgrade to Vista to play it. Didn't take long for hackers to make it known that Halo 2 was very capable of running on WinXP in its full glory.

They always try to force people to "upgrade" to a newer OS just to use the latest version of DX. It's ridiculous.


----------



## Durquavian

Heres to hoping for open source.


----------



## Konbad

*insert witty valve pun here*


----------



## jesh462

I think someone else brought up a good point about the compute capabilities of Kaveri. It's very possible that the onboard shaders combined with huma and completely unified memory will make up for any deficiencies in core count. Time will tell..


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jesh462*
> 
> I think someone else brought up a good point about the compute capabilities of Kaveri. It's very possible that the onboard shaders combined with huma and completely unified memory will make up for any deficiencies in core count. Time will tell..


When HSA is adopted by most software companies that could be true. Don't bet the house on it. It will take time and Intel will definitely use its influence to slow down the process. I don't see it for at least 2 years. Steamroller has to sell now based on current performance NOT what it can do in 2 years. There are NOT enough cores in Kaveri , even with improvements in IPC, to compensate for loss of 4 cores on multi-threaded applications.


----------



## jesh462

Yeah, you're probably right. I'm just being optimistic here.
Also, HSA doesn't need to work full bore in all apps, just popular ones that are heavily threaded. If it can make enough of a difference in the most popular programs for tasks like rendering, video editing, folding, encryption, compression and games, that could very well be enough for now.
It's up to AMD to coordinate efforts with partners to get this all off the ground with the right priorities to make maximum impact. Certainly things will take care of themselves with time, but we all want results yesterday.


----------



## MrJava

Intel has proven that 4 strong cores are better than 8 weak ones more often than not.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> When HSA is adopted by most software companies that could be true. Don't bet the house on it. It will take time and Intel will definitely use its influence to slow down the process. I don't see it for at least 2 years. Steamroller has to sell now based on current performance NOT what it can do in 2 years. There are NOT enough cores in Kaveri , even with improvements in IPC, to compensate for loss of 4 cores on multi-threaded applications.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Intel has proven that 4 strong cores are better than 8 weak ones more often than not.


Actually not. What proof? Software compiled on ICC. Sorry not proof.


----------



## NaroonGTX

It depends on how threaded something is. Intel tends to pull ahead if the software/app is lightly-threaded. 83xx really only pulls ahead when all cores are being used to their fullest. If Steamroller can improve the single-threaded perf enough, the multi-threaded workloads would improve as a whole, especially since the cores wouldn't be starved anymore. This isn't to say that Kaveri would pull ahead of a Vishera hexa/octocore in workloads that are heavily-multithreaded -- at least in terms of CPU-only -- but otherwise those 4 stronger cores would put up great performance.

Even the i7 chips (well half of them, anyway) are just quad-cores with hyperthreading... That HT nonsense doesn't scale as well as real cores do, and HT only shows a decent benefit whenever the software is coded specifically for it. Intel's stronger cores is what allows them to pull ahead sometimes in those multi-threaded tasks.


----------



## MrJava

Then look at phoronix benchmarks compiled with the neutral GCC and LLVM compilers - intel still leads for everything except high throughput INT benches.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Actually not. What proof? Software compiled on ICC. Sorry not proof.


Hyperthreading gives SMT a bad name. Just look how well IBM chips scale with 4 - 8 threads per core.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It depends on how threaded something is. Intel tends to pull ahead if the software/app is lightly-threaded. 83xx really only pulls ahead when all cores are being used to their fullest. If Steamroller can improve the single-threaded perf enough, the multi-threaded workloads would improve as a whole, especially since the cores wouldn't be starved anymore. This isn't to say that Kaveri would pull ahead of a Vishera hexa/octocore in workloads that are heavily-multithreaded -- at least in terms of CPU-only -- but otherwise those 4 stronger cores would put up great performance.
> 
> Even the i7 chips (well half of them, anyway) are just quad-cores with hyperthreading... That HT nonsense doesn't scale as well as real cores do, and HT only shows a decent benefit whenever the software is coded specifically for it. Intel's stronger cores is what allows them to pull ahead sometimes in those multi-threaded tasks.


----------



## sdlvx

Regarding Steambox being an APU.

I've heard a rumor that it will be an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU. It coincides with Nvidia just adding this Linux support out of nowhere.

I don't see it being an AMD APU, fglrx on GCN is absolutely terrible. After enough time my window contents stop drawing and just become a flickery mess. That and I get 50fps in LoL on WINE and 200+ in LoL in Windows and TF2 WINE is like 50fps and TF2 Windows is like 400fps.

AMD needs to get fglrx in order soon. Their CPUs are great in Linux and their GPUs blow in Linux.


----------



## Abundant Cores

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Regarding Steambox being an APU.
> 
> I've heard a rumor that it will be an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU. It coincides with Nvidia just adding this Linux support out of nowhere.
> 
> I don't see it being an AMD APU, fglrx on GCN is absolutely terrible. After enough time my window contents stop drawing and just become a flickery mess. That and I get 50fps in LoL on WINE and 200+ in LoL in Windows and TF2 WINE is like 50fps and TF2 Windows is like 400fps.
> 
> AMD needs to get fglrx in order soon. Their CPUs are great in Linux and their GPUs blow in Linux.


Apparently AMD have an announcement RE: Linux Drivers tomorrow.
Quote:


> according to Raja we can expect news on Eyefinity, Crossfire, and Linux driver support


Quote:


> Meanwhile Linux driver support is an ongoing issue, as while AMD has committed to Linux driver development in the past, the practical reality is that the open source AMD drivers still trail AMD's closed source drivers in features, performance, and support on AMD's latest products. We're told that tomorrow's announcement will make Linux users/developers especially excited, so we may be seeing how AMD intends to close that gap.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/7366/amd-offers-a-taste-of-tomorrows-gpu-showcase


----------



## Konbad

i would have thought they would use nvidia because nvidia has been working closely with valve for openGL porting of source


----------



## Konbad

i would have thought they would use nvidia because nvidia has been working closely with valve for openGL porting of source


----------



## NaroonGTX

Various Steam Boxes will most likely have AMD and Nvidia variants for sure.


----------



## Castaa

I would assume a high end Kaveri would be featured in a Steam box. It's the only part that makes sense to me in such a HTPC/gaming device.

But I don't see how a Steam Box competes with the up coming consoles unless it's much less expensive in comparison, meaning significantly under $400-500. Because otherwise, why bother? Big Screen Steam is mostly console port games anyway. Unless Valve personally is going to make a big push into developing/funding Steam Box games, which I highly doubt.


----------



## Konbad

1. both AMD and Nvidia ramping up linux support
2. AMD Mantle should run on Linux Also ( therefore bf4 will run on linux)
3. Steambox can stream games from another computer in a similar fashion to the Nvidia Shield so you should immediately have access to every single game in your steam library


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> 1. both AMD and Nvidia ramping up linux support
> 2. AMD Mantle should run on Linux Also ( therefore bf4 will run on linux)
> 3. Steambox can stream games from another computer in a similar fashion to the Nvidia Shield so you should immediately have access to every single game in your steam library


Aren't we off-topic now? What is the relevance of all this to steamroller???


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Aren't we off-topic now? What is the relevance of all this to steamroller???


An APU in Steambox is how. Thought you were out for a few days?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> An APU in Steambox is how. Thought you were out for a few days?


Out starting next Thursday.


----------



## itomic

So when we will finally know whether Steamroller will be out and wether it will be AM3+ compatible ??


----------



## Schmuckley

Vaporware is vaporware;Kaveri will be out late 2013/early 2014.
That's the best I can do with the facts available.


----------



## NaroonGTX

*Broken record*

We will know more about Steamroller when:

1) AMD releases the next wave of roadmaps which will focus on the year 2014 and possibly a small chunk of 2015; These roadmaps will be released sometime either in October of November.

2) The APU '14 event which is supposed to be sometime in mid-November 2013, I think.

edit - Lol @ vaporware. Kaveri was only pushed back by a year at most, that's nowhere close to being considered vaporware.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> So when we will finally know whether Steamroller will be out and wether it will be AM3+ compatible ??


I can do better than Shmuckley. You will know by November 14th the date of the AMD developers conference..


----------



## MrJava

AMD gave the bait to the tech press by saying they would talk more about Mantle at AFDS. APUs and HSA could receive a little more press attention than usual. Good work AMD PR.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD gave the bait to the tech press by saying they would talk more about Mantle at AFDS. APUs and HSA could receive a little more press attention than usual. Good work AMD PR.


It would be nice if you wouldn't assume every one knows what AFDS stands for.


----------



## roofrider

Lol, AMD Fusion Developer Summit. It's changed now, it's just AMD Developer Summit aka APU13 this year.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *roofrider*
> 
> Lol, AMD Fusion Developer Summit. It's changed now, it's just AMD Developer Summit aka APU13 this year.


Yes, that is what I expected. Too many acronyms and what's worse is obsolete acronyms.


----------



## MrJava

Guess I'm just used to tech industry alphabet soup.

Here's a recent kaveri presentation to leaf through. Not much new info, except for slide 21 which shows an abstract representation of a CPU module with 3 ALUs per core. I try not to read too much into these things but I wonder if its an old diagram referencing the 2 ALUS + 1 MMX pipe (per core) or if its something else.
http://share.csdn.net/#/detail/851

On a side note, I think Kaveri may include "True Audio" technology since the R7 260X (Bonaire??) does as well.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes, that is what I expected. Too many acronyms and what's worse is obsolete acronyms.


----------



## jesh462

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *itomic*
> 
> So when we will finally know whether Steamroller will be out and wether it will be AM3+ compatible ??


It won't be. I'd bet money on it if anyone is down.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't think AM3+ will receive anymore chips as well.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't think AM3+ will receive anymore chips as well.


According to my conversation with AMD marketing AM3+ should get at least one more offering. Whether that is steamroller or something else I do not know.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That would mean either Steamroller-based or a Piledriver refresh (again).

Hypothetically speaking, I'm not so quick to rule out a SR part, regardless of the fact that BD & PD FX were based off the Operton variants (well, they pretty much *were* the same chip). AMD could very well just make a whole new die for an FX based on SR. I think one of the main reasons why Vishera came out in such a short order past Zambezi is because PD was basically cleaning up the mess that was Zambezi... SR is a fairly bigger leap past all that.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That would mean either Steamroller-based or a Piledriver refresh (again).
> 
> Hypothetically speaking, I'm not so quick to rule out a SR part, regardless of the fact that BD & PD FX were based off the Operton variants (well, they pretty much *were* the same chip). AMD could very well just make a whole new die for an FX based on SR. I think one of the main reasons why Vishera came out in such a short order past Zambezi is because PD was basically cleaning up the mess that was Zambezi... SR is a fairly bigger leap past all that.


If there will be a last rendition of am3+ steamroller, I expect we will have to wait a good 6-8 months for it. The apu is the priority of AMD. I would hope eventually for FX on FM2+ for say an excavator release. Pure conjecture until November.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Indeed. It would be great for them to make the complete transition to FM2+. We will find out mid-November what AMD will do (most likely) with SR FX, if anything at all.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That would mean either Steamroller-based or a Piledriver refresh (again).
> 
> Hypothetically speaking, I'm not so quick to rule out a SR part, regardless of the fact that BD & PD FX were based off the Operton variants (well, they pretty much *were* the same chip)


Not pretty much, they are 100% the same. Even down to the four HT Links being present in the desktop version. Those links are simply laser cut so they don't work. Even the high end 16 core G34 server parts are simply two FX-8350 on a single package through an MCM.



That is a Vishera desktop die, the FX-8350. You can see two HT Links on the right side, one at the top right and one at the bottom right as well (dual DDR3 controllers are on the far left if you were wondering). I take the server roadmap as not showing any Steamroller AM3+ compatible die, along with no core codename ever hinted at, the silence on the matter as well as trying to dodge the question by AMD, the direction AMD is trying to move in, and the lack of anything leaking by other means (mobo makers) to show that there will not be an AM3+ Steamroller design anytime soon if at all, which I have said from the beginning.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Not pretty much, they are 100% the same. Even down to the four HT Links being present in the desktop version. Those links are simply laser cut so they don't work. Even the high end 16 core G34 server parts are simply two FX-8350 on a single package through an MCM.
> 
> 
> 
> That is a Vishera desktop die, the FX-8350. You can see two HT Links on the right side, one at the top right and one at the bottom right as well (dual DDR3 controllers are on the far left if you were wondering). I take the server roadmap as not showing any Steamroller AM3+ compatible die, along with no core codename ever hinted at, the silence on the matter as well as trying to dodge the question by AMD, the direction AMD is trying to move in, and the lack of anything leaking by other means (mobo makers) to show that there will not be an AM3+ Steamroller design anytime soon if at all, which I have said from the beginning.


Your key words are "anytime soon". I will agree with you on that. Later in 2014 is a reasonable speculation. I will not bet on it. I prefer to wait 5 weeks until the APU Conference which begins November 11 instead of howling from the top of a garbage heap. I am not implying anything negative towards you. I just at this late point of the game see no point of further debate of will they or won't they on AM3+.


----------



## NaroonGTX

We definitely won't see anything anytime soon. Even though I personally believe it won't happen (despite being more optimistic earlier this year) the best course of action is to wait for APU '13 in November. I expect them to talk about HSA & hUMA and Mantle more than anything else though. Wouldn't be shocked if AM3+ doesn't even get mentioned. The roadmaps will tell us what we want to know.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> We definitely won't see anything anytime soon. Even though I personally believe it won't happen (despite being more optimistic earlier this year) the best course of action is to wait for APU '13 in November. I expect them to talk about HSA & hUMA and Mantle more than anything else though. Wouldn't be shocked if AM3+ doesn't even get mentioned. The roadmaps will tell us what we want to know.


And the roadmap will be released just before or during the conference,hence I mentioned the conference.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I know, that's why I mentioned the roadmaps, lol.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Guess I'm just used to tech industry alphabet soup.
> 
> Here's a recent kaveri presentation to leaf through. Not much new info, except for slide 21 which shows an abstract representation of a CPU module with 3 ALUs per core. I try not to read too much into these things but I wonder if its an old diagram referencing the 2 ALUS + 1 MMX pipe (per core) or if its something else.
> http://share.csdn.net/#/detail/851
> 
> On a side note, I think Kaveri may include "True Audio" technology since the R7 260X (Bonaire??) does as well.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes, that is what I expected. Too many acronyms and what's worse is obsolete acronyms.
Click to expand...

There are some things in those slides that make me feel optimistic. References to desktop platforms as well as mentioning GPGPU instead of APU.

I like the tone of the slides in general. It is talking about HSA first and APUs second, leading me to feel like APU is just an ends to a means for HSA and that AMD plans on going further with it. It seems to me like HSA on APU is a very safe way to go about this. Imagine folks who go for AMD APU because of GPU performance in games, and then a year or two from now they are suddenly running HSA applications and their chips are flying. It is a great way to get a nice install base.

Contrast that with desktop or even some laptops, where a single AMD GPU coupled with an Intel CPU means AMD has no control over the platform. So every AMD GPU with an Intel CPU wouldn't be HSA compatible.

After seeing these slides discuss HSA in the way they did, as a final goal with APU as a stepping stone, I feel much more confident that APUs are an effort by AMD to get control of a platform as opposed to pushing HSA.

I think that if AMD can build a solid enough platform of CPU + GPU + chipset they will move to desktop, but the numbers for that on desktop for people running AMD CPU + AMD GPU + AMD chipset are probably quite abysmal.

I am kind of out of it but what I'm trying to get at is that it is a lot easier to get someone to buy an AMD CPU + GPU + chipset if you're selling someone an APU as opposed to trying to get someone on a new platform when they have a choice between AMD and Nvidia for graphics and Intel and AMD for CPU in the same build. APU eliminates a lot of possibilities and pushes consumers more towards AMD APU if they are going AMD.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That would mean either Steamroller-based or a Piledriver refresh (again).
> 
> Hypothetically speaking, I'm not so quick to rule out a SR part, regardless of the fact that BD & PD FX were based off the Operton variants (well, they pretty much *were* the same chip)
> 
> 
> 
> Not pretty much, they are 100% the same. Even down to the four HT Links being present in the desktop version. Those links are simply laser cut so they don't work. Even the high end 16 core G34 server parts are simply two FX-8350 on a single package through an MCM.
> 
> 
> 
> That is a Vishera desktop die, the FX-8350. You can see two HT Links on the right side, one at the top right and one at the bottom right as well (dual DDR3 controllers are on the far left if you were wondering). I take the server roadmap as not showing any Steamroller AM3+ compatible die, along with no core codename ever hinted at, the silence on the matter as well as trying to dodge the question by AMD, the direction AMD is trying to move in, and the lack of anything leaking by other means (mobo makers) to show that there will not be an AM3+ Steamroller design anytime soon if at all, which I have said from the beginning.
Click to expand...

I have heard some speculation on GC34 being a unified socket between server and desktop and it makes a lot of sense. FX and Opteron are the same chip, yet AMD has to do additional work to sell the same chip to different customers? Why not just sell FX and Opteron on the same platform as the same chips and just bin them differently? No more fusing off. No more multiple chipsets, one less platform to maintain while not losing any customers on either platform.

It also makes AMD much more competitive on the high end, because it opens up the possibility of MCM packages being sold to enthusiasts. The only thing that makes 3930k and greater so expensive and sought after is multi-thread performance. 3930k at core i3 clock speed is basically the same in single thread. People who want to pay for all those cores will because they want those cores for multi-threaded workloads that they run.

And the best part about that for AMD is that they don't have to do anything. They just let people buy the same Opterons other people would buy for servers and put them in an enthusiast board.

It also opens up the possibility for multi-CPU rigs. The problem with other multi-CPU rigs right now is that:

1. You can't overclock on new Intel multi-CPU rig
2. 4x4/quadfather/etc required special platform for consumers

I don't even think you would need expensive opterons for a multi-CPU rig if AMD didn't fuse off the extra HT links on FX chips. It would be a lot of power consumption, but two FX steamrollers with 4m/8c will not be slower than 4930k in multi-thread and it would probably be cheaper for the two FXs than it would be for the single 4930k.

The problem with all of this is that it's a horrible time to introduce a new platform if you want to keep it around for any length of time (pro-tip: Intel is going to trash current platform in a year or two), because we're on the brink of DDR4. So what is AMD to do? Release a new platform with DDR3 and have it be obsolete in a year? Or hold it out?

And what does it look like AMD is doing? Holding out.

I just hope to see a 4m/8c steamroller part sometime in my lifetime. I get the feeling that if you could run it 4m/4c and it still saw the 40% IPC increase PIledriver sees and SR will come close to SB IPC, it'd be an amazing chip. Not sure if the front end changes would affect that though, it probably would by a lot.


----------



## roofrider

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> According to my conversation with AMD marketing AM3+ should get at least one more offering. Whether that is steamroller or something else I do not know.


A recent one? I know you had a convo with them a few months back... Maybe it's time to ring them up again?


----------



## Papadope

Is it likely that we will learn more about Steamroller cores at APU '14 or will it mainly be focused on Kaveri's HSA and HUMA? That's more than enough to get my attention but curiosity is killing me when it comes to Steamroller.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Is it likely that we will learn more about Steamroller cores at APU '14 or will it mainly be focused on Kaveri's HSA and HUMA? That's more than enough to get my attention but curiosity is killing me when it comes to Steamroller.


Do you bother to read? I have posted all over this forum and the AMD FX Vishera Official oners club forum that John Taylor, Global Marketing director from AMD related to me by phone that the new desktop roadmap would be revealed sometime between late October and APU or Developers Conference thst runs 10/11 - 10/14. I am really tired of having to constantly repeat it.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Do you bother to read? I have posted all over this forum and the AMD FX Vishera Official oners club forum that John Taylor, Global Marketing director from AMD related to me by phone that the new desktop roadmap would be revealed sometime between late October and APU or Developers Conference thst runs 10/11 - 10/14. I am really tired of having to constantly repeat it.


I have read every post actually, and yes I know new road maps are coming out. In fact, It was one of my questions many pages back. What I asked was will we learn more about the actual improvements coming with the new steamroller cores, and possibly get some kind of performance numbers. Not about what products they have coming down the pipeline which we know of already except for a definitive answer if AM3+ is dead or not.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I have read every post actually, and yes I know new road maps are coming out. In fact, It was one of my questions many pages back. What I asked was will we learn more about the actual improvements coming with the new steamroller cores, and possibly get some kind of performance numbers. Not about what products they have coming down the pipeline which we know of already except for a definitive answer if AM3+ is dead or not.


So sorry that was not clear to me from your original post. I think some time in December there will be some early reviews on Kaveri. I am sure the developers conference will have All of the technical details on the cores as well.


----------



## NaroonGTX

There's simply no way of knowing right now whether or not they will talk more about the Steamroller architecture at that event right now. I say there's a high chance they will, though I dunno exactly how in-depth they will go. Since the event will be primarily about APU's and why they are so important, it would only make sense for them to detail the uarch some while talking about HSA, hUMA, cloud computing and all that jazz.


----------



## csimon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There's simply no way of knowing right now whether or not they will talk more about the Steamroller architecture at that event right now. I say there's a high chance they will, though I dunno exactly how in-depth they will go. Since the event will be primarily about APU's and why they are so important, it would only make sense for them to detail the uarch some while talking about HSA, hUMA, cloud computing and all that jazz.


It's quite possible that by keeping quiet about Steamroller they hope to sell more FX-9*** ...because otherwise most of us will just wait for SR.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Do you bother to read? I have posted all over this forum and the AMD FX Vishera Official oners club forum that John Taylor, Global Marketing director from AMD related to me by phone that the new desktop roadmap would be revealed sometime between late October and APU or Developers Conference thst runs 10/11 - 10/14. I am really tired of having to constantly repeat it.
> 
> 
> 
> I have read every post actually, and yes I know new road maps are coming out. In fact, It was one of my questions many pages back. What I asked was will we learn more about the actual improvements coming with the new steamroller cores, and possibly get some kind of performance numbers. Not about what products they have coming down the pipeline which we know of already except for a definitive answer if AM3+ is dead or not.
Click to expand...

APUs are the primary focus for AMD right now. You need complete control over the platform (CPU + GPU + chipset) in order to enable HSA as Intel and Nvidia aren't a part of the HSA foundation.

Desktop only push for HSA would mean AMD would have to convince people to buy AMD CPU + AMD GPU + chipset for the HSA software _that will come later_. No one likes buying hardware in the hopes that software follows later.

APU means that AMD sells the CPU + GPU + chipset and that's it.

Desktop is too easy for someone to go AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU or Intel CPU + AMD GPU. Both of those combinations would not give HSA compatible desktop rigs.

When HSA becomes a thing and it gives people a reason to want to build an HSA system with a good software library, AMD will release desktop HSA platform. I guarantee it as 2m/4c APUs are not enough for a lot of power users.

AMD is doing this to avoid the mistakes of amd64 and to solve a lot of problems which come from a chicken and egg new software and hardware that require each other problem. Which is quite massive. How do you get people to write software for your hardware if no one has the hardware? How do you get people to buy your hardware when there's no software for it?

AMD sells APUs as "good performing iGPU chips" but they're really creating an install base for HSA enabled systems, it's just the software isn't there yet and they're kind of (I hate to use this word because they're not trying to be deceitful but it's the best I can do) tricking people into buying a chip for one reason when the real reason is an HSA enabled system install base.

It's a lot easier to sell a budget APU than it is to get desktop users to buy an AMD CPU + AMD GPU + chipset. Look at this site, most people are running Intel CPU + AMD GPU or Nvidia GPU. If AMD put DT first for HSA, it would be a total waste of time and it wouldn't work. At least with APU first they have a chance to get software devs on HSA to entice people to buy HSA DT systems instead of ******* to benchmarks of games they don't play (skyrim, SC2, etc).

Then again I could be over-estimating AMD, lol.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> If AMD put DT first for HSA, it would be a total waste of time and it wouldn't work. At least with APU first they have a chance to get software devs on HSA to entice people to buy HSA DT systems instead of ******* to benchmarks of games they don't play (skyrim, SC2, etc).


Well Kaveri *is* launching on desktop first, with the mobile variants coming later.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Well Kaveri *is* launching on desktop first, with the mobile variants coming later.


It kind of still applies to desktop because most people buying an APU are not going to add a discrete card. It is also a possibility with Kaveri that even if someone added a discrete card the IGPU would still be used for HSA. AFAIK the only chipsets available for FM2+ are AMD's own right? So for the most part they still have control of the entire platform.

Edit: I think he was referring to Desktop as AM3+, CPU cores only.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, that's what I think. I was just a bit confused from the way he worded it.

AMD is adding HSA functionality to their GPU's, though I don't know if the upcoming Volcanic Islands will have that or if that will arrive with Pirate Islands. Seems that AMD will be focusing on the APU thing first and foremost though, as evidenced by the ambiguity of the true fate of Socket AM3+.

edit: LOL just realized a spelling error I made earlier. I originally said _"AMD is adding GPU functionality to their GPU's..."_ LOL that's ridiculous, how did I miss that?!


----------



## TheLAWNOOB

Let hope that SteamRoller will break the camel(intel)'s back.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller won't overtake Intel performance-wise, if that's what you were alluding to. It would catch up to Sandy Bridge in a best case scenario.


----------



## MrJava

Did AMD really think that FX-9*** chips would be big sellers? Doubt it.

AM3+ is pretty much dead at this point considering that you probably need an on-die PCIe 3.0 controller for multi-GPU with AMD's OWN high-end cards to work decently.
Otherwise, I think kaveri will be pretty good for single-GPU setups.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *csimon*
> 
> It's quite possible that by keeping quiet about Steamroller they hope to sell more FX-9*** ...because otherwise most of us will just wait for SR.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Did AMD really think that FX-9*** chips would be big sellers? Doubt it.
> 
> AM3+ is pretty much dead at this point considering that you probably need an on-die PCIe 3.0 controller for multi-GPU with AMD's OWN high-end cards to work decently.
> Otherwise, I think kaveri will be pretty good for single-GPU setups.


Limited supply so I doubt they expected it to be a big seller.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AM3+ is pretty much dead at this point considering that you probably need an on-die PCIe 3.0 controller for multi-GPU with AMD's OWN high-end cards to work decently


Why? Hyper-Transport can have the same bandwidth or WAY more (currently has 25.6GB/s) as PCI-E and it has lower latency. If AMD used the full 32-bit HTT then they would have 51.2GB/s of bandwidth with their current HTT 3.1 specification they use. It would be easy to integrate a PCI-E 3.0 controller with 40 lanes in a new northbridge chip connected via HTT direct to the CPU and no one would ever tell the difference in performance. What you lose in time and efficiency to convert from PCI-E to HTT you gain in lower latencypost-conversion and higher bandwidth. Or if AMD really wanted they could build HTT and PCI-E into a single processor and still use Hyper-transport for many things and go direct through PCI-E straight to expansion slots, nothing would stop them from doing that either but it would be a serious deviation away from their current platform layout (edit: and this part would require a new socket most likely).

It is really a shame that the industry did not move to HTX graphics cards instead of PCI-E. You can even have different link widths with HT just like PCI-E, anywhere from 2-bit to 32-bit. a 32-bit HT 3.0 link would give more than 3x the current PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth.

EDIT: actually it looks like the northbridge doesn't even have to convert a lot, all Hyper-Transport specifications from HT 2.0 and on support PCI-E mapping directly. Here, have some fun reading:
http://www.hypertransport.org/default.cfm?page=HyperTransportSpecifications


----------



## MrJava

PCIe on AM3+ requires two hops which automatically means more latency than necessary versus an on-die controller. You also seem to have some strange ideas with PCIe-to-HT "conversion".









For the lowest latency, they need an on-die PCIe controller connected to the chip's internal bus. For chip-to-chip interconnects, they can provide HyperTransport links. This is the same thing intel does with PCIe and QPI, except they use a ring topology as opposed to HT's point-to-point links.

Of course, all of this requires a new socket.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Why? Hyper-Transport can have the same bandwidth or WAY more (currently has 25.6GB/s) as PCI-E and it has lower latency. If AMD used the full 32-bit HTT then they would have 51.2GB/s of bandwidth with their current HTT 3.1 specification they use. It would be easy to integrate a PCI-E 3.0 controller with 40 lanes in a new northbridge chip connected via HTT direct to the CPU and no one would ever tell the difference in performance. What you lose in time and efficiency to convert from PCI-E to HTT you gain in lower latencypost-conversion and higher bandwidth. Or if AMD really wanted they could build HTT and PCI-E into a single processor and still use Hyper-transport for many things and go direct through PCI-E straight to expansion slots, nothing would stop them from doing that either but it would be a serious deviation away from their current platform layout.
> 
> It is really a shame that the industry did not move to HTX graphics cards instead of PCI-E. You can even have different link widths with HT just like PCI-E, anywhere from 2-bit to 32-bit. a 32-bit HT 3.0 link would give more than 3x the current PCI-E 3.0 bandwidth.
> 
> EDIT: actually the northbridge doesn't even have to convert, all Hyper-Transport specifications from HT 2.0 and on support PCI-E mapping directly. Here, have some fun reading:
> http://www.hypertransport.org/default.cfm?page=HyperTransportSpecifications


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> You also seem to have some strange ideas with PCIe-to-HT "conversion".


Is PCI-E 3.0 encoding exactly the same as Hyper-Transport? If not then you would need to convert HT's encoding to PCI-E encoding if you want the CPU to be able to talk to the GPU wouldn't you? This could be done in the northbridge since the NB chip would be connected by HT and out of the NB go the PCI-E lanes connected to expansion slots. However since the Hyper-Transport controller can directly map back and forth between HT spec and PCI-E spec then it shouldn't need to convert encoding schemes, nor would it need to make a hop into another chip since the PCI-E lanes can map into the HT controller. In the diagrams from the Hyper-Transport Consortium for slot layout they are even using a standard 16 lane PCI-E connector slot as a HTX slot. The lane/bit layout is also incredibly similar and the way lanes/bits can be divided and routed are also the same.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Of course, all of this requires a new socket.


Why would it need a new socket? The current setup has HT controller links in the CPU and PCI-E in the system. Simply changing the chipset to PCI-E 3.0 would give the full 3.0 upgrade. It just wouldn't be inside the CPU in this design so you lose a tiny bit of performance, though hardly anything. None of that needs a new socket, and since HT lanes in 16-bit configuration are already leaving the CPU socket area if it is true that HT and PCI-E can talk to each other then what is stopping the PCI-E signal from being routed directly to the CPU itself other than lack of high lane count? We also dont know if AMD is using every single pin on the socket or not, maybe it could be increased to full 32-bit controller and lanes. Who knows.


----------



## MrJava

Two hops is two hops - you are going to see an increase in latency. Plus the northbridge has to arbitrate all the traffic from multiple GPUs, LAN, SATA etc. to a relatively skinny pipe to the CPU which adds some non-trivial amount of latency on top. Why else would Oracle (Sun), IBM and Intel all be integrating on-die PCIe controllers? Not to mention AMD already takes this approach with its APU line.

Following your line of logic would imply that an IMC is not required if there is enough bandwidth to the northbridge.

Finally I doubt that AM3+ has any more headroom with its pin count given that socket C32 has 1207 pins for 2 HT 3.1 links and 2 ddr3 channels.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Why would it need a new socket? The current setup has HT controller links in the CPU and PCI-E in the system. *Simply changing the chipset to PCI-E 3.0 would give the full 3.0 upgrade. It just wouldn't be inside the CPU in this design so you lose a tiny bit of performance, though hardly anything.* None of that needs a new socket, and since HT lanes in 16-bit configuration are already leaving the CPU socket area if it is true that HT and PCI-E can talk to each other then what is stopping the PCI-E signal from being routed directly to the CPU itself other than lack of high lane count? We also dont know if AMD is using every single pin on the socket or not, maybe it could be increased to full 32-bit controller and lanes. Who knows.


----------



## Schmuckley

Well..I for one..will be getting FM2+ Kaveri and running it with a discrete GPU.
I would hold out for AM3+ ones but..It's been wayy too long since i got a new AMD chip
Piledriver? Blech..


----------



## NaroonGTX

That's what I'm doing... I have personally skipped both Bulldozer and Piledriver, as I don't like some of the design concessions that were made... And Steamroller fixes those, and for what I do, four cores is enough for me. I will be moving over to FM2+ and Kaveri, and drop in a dGPU later for the more modern demanding games. One of the things I do (PCSX2) requires strong single-threaded throughput for two threads, something that my current Llano-rig isn't really giving me most of the time. I was gonna go to AM3+ or FM2 but I'm glad I held out this long. Either way SR/Kaveri won't disappoint me as I already know what I will be getting.


----------



## sdlvx

What seronx claimed about HDL PD refresh and new chipset is starting to make sense.

It is a bad time to release a new platform (socket, chipset, etc) with DDR4 around the corner, unless you're Intel and you love new sockets.

I am just waiting for some sort of evidence to suggest if AMD is going APU only or if they're just delaying dCPU platform. There is evidence and sound reasoning for and against both options.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> If AMD put DT first for HSA, it would be a total waste of time and it wouldn't work. At least with APU first they have a chance to get software devs on HSA to entice people to buy HSA DT systems instead of ******* to benchmarks of games they don't play (skyrim, SC2, etc).
> 
> 
> 
> Well Kaveri *is* launching on desktop first, with the mobile variants coming later.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't write that right. I did mean more along the lines of AMD CPU only platforms vs APU. AMD's goal it to get people on APU platform as those are guaranteed HSA systems. Where-as an AMD CPU or GPU sale is NOT a guaranteed HSA system and they can be paired with Intel and Nvidia products.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I see what you mean now, yeah that makes sense.

I think Excavator will be the point where they are totally APU-only. Since the codename Carrizo was already leaked and the parts are targeting a 65W (sources say they are even targeting 45W maximum!), and it is supposed to be a drop-in chip for FM2+ MOBO's with a typical BIOS update. AM3+ seems like the last thing it will get is a SR FX, but just not any time soon -- most likely Q3 or Q4 2014.

I don't think we will see a new socket until post-Excavator. Thing is, we of course have no idea what AMD plans to do at all past EX, lol. But even once DDR4 comes, I think FM2+ will still be the socket, but there will merely just be new MOBO's released for those who wish to take advantage of DDR4 -- possibly with either a Kaveri refresh or the introduction of Carrizo, whichever one which would have a dual-IMC for DDR3 and DDR4.


----------



## Seronx

FM2+ -> Kaveri and Refresh(Carrizo?) / Steamroller
G34+ -> Warsaw and Refresh / Piledriver

It probably won't be till late 2015 or early 2016, till we see Excavator and the unified socket.


----------



## Castaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I have read every post actually, and yes I know new road maps are coming out. In fact, It was one of my questions many pages back. What I asked was will we learn more about the actual improvements coming with the new steamroller cores, and possibly get some kind of performance numbers. Not about what products they have coming down the pipeline which we know of already except for a definitive answer if AM3+ is dead or not.


I made a thread a while back outlining some of the known changes upcoming for Steamroller/Kaveri:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1406782/amd-kaveri-apu-information-thread/


----------



## NaroonGTX

People may find this an interesting read: http://juanrga.com/en/AMD-kaveri-benchmark.html


----------



## btupsx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> People may find this an interesting read: http://juanrga.com/en/AMD-kaveri-benchmark.html


Awesome find, +1 rep to you. Probably the best representation, based upon facts, of what SR will bring to the table, that I have seen thus far. It more or less confirms my fear that even if SR is released in AM3+ form, it would make little long term sense NOT to switch to FM2+


----------



## Dynamo11

Yeah it seems a switch to FM2+ would be prudent, especially as the Steamroller refresh would also be on that socket. Excavator won't be though because that should support DDR4 memory which FM2+ doesn't


----------



## NaroonGTX

Most leaks are saying that Carrizo (Excavator APU) will also be on FM2+ socket. Methinks they will just do more FM2+ boards that have DDR4 sockets rather than DDR3 slots. I recalled a video that showed how DDR4 could effectively destroy GDDR5, which would make sense to adopt that for desktops rather than some weird GDDR5 implementation. BGA products would be a different story. If not Kaveri, a Kaveri refresh or EX-based successor would have a dual-IMC which would support DDR3 and DDR4.

Then again, it's also possible that Carrizo would be on FM3 (the unified socket) along with CPU-only parts instead. This isn't a huge deal for now though, since we won't see Carrizo until c. 2015.

Also it's very interesting how supposedly Kaveri's memory controller is much improved, to where people got higher performance at a mere 1600mhz with Kaveri over 2400mhz Richland.


----------



## Konbad

Probably mentioned already but i cannot remember is there a technical reason why AMD couldn't do a 8 Core SR CPU on the FM2+ Socket?


----------



## NaroonGTX

There is no technical reason why they couldn't. They could easily do so if they wanted.


----------



## EniGma1987

AMD could and was going to do a 10-core Piledriver CPU on AM3+ (Komodo core, it was in release candidate silicon before the CPU was cancelled), and that is 32nm. This means they could easily do 8-10 cores with no GPU on a 28nm HDL process, possibly even 12-core. But so far it looks like they dont want to do just CPU cores, they want to integrate bigger and bigger GPUs. Which means we probably wont see more than a 4-core Steamroller on FM2+ socket, though technically AMD could do a 6-core with current sized GPU and still end up smaller than the current Piledriver APU's in die size.


----------



## Konbad

im hoping they just do it i couldn't care less about a special socket for it, im not interested in APU's unless they can deliver R9 290X performance and 4930K CPU performance from the chip it doesn't really matter to me i use dedicated graphics in multiple configurations. keeping it on the same socket would simplify everything i guess we will have to see.. and pray steamroller isn't another bulldozer


----------



## NaroonGTX

R9-290x GPU performance and 4930k CPU performance for an APU is a ridiculous pipedream, and there's no way Steamroller would be another Bulldozer.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> im not interested in APU's unless they can deliver R9 290X performance and 4930K CPU performance from the chip


Yeah, and I want a pony!









Seriously, that would be nice. But with todays technology that would be a very big chip. Look at the 4930K and the R9 290X chips, they're not small and they pull a lot of watts. Combine them and you get a ridiculous large die that draws easily over 300 Watts. Ain't gonna happen, the motherboard alone would be stupid expensive.

And that's why AMD have started this HSA thing. It is possible to do pretty interesting things with it, you will get much better performance with much less so to speak. As a 4930K and a 290X on die isn't really possible, we need to find other ways to do things. Many have recognized this, it is pretty much only Intel and Nvidia who isn't in the HSA foundation as is.

I don't think we'll see anything bigger than four cores from AMD in consumer space for the foreseeable future. They will eventually catch up to Intel in IPC, Intel is already pretty much at the theoretical limit for IPC already. What AMD needs foremost is a better process. Piledriver on ~16 nm finFET:s would probably not be too bad. But when TSMC (possibly GloFO, but I'm skeptical) can deliver that (late 2015?) AMD will have Excavator and probably beyond ready.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> People may find this an interesting read: http://juanrga.com/en/AMD-kaveri-benchmark.html


Nice find, thanks









It will be interesting in a couple of months to see what Kaveri can do, all on AMD:s limited budget and TSMC/GloFo process. I'm pretty sure AM3+ is dead and the 9000-series FX was the last bone thrown to us. Not that I need to upgrade or anything, not that long ago I had a Phenom dual core


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> Yeah, and I want a pony!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seriously, that would be nice. But with todays technology that would be a very big chip. Look at the 4930K and the R9 290X chips, they're not small and they pull a lot of watts. Combine them and you get a ridiculous large die that draws easily over 300 Watts. Ain't gonna happen, the motherboard alone would be stupid expensive.
> 
> And that's why AMD have started this HSA thing. It is possible to do pretty interesting things with it, you will get much better performance with much less so to speak. As a 4930K and a 290X on die isn't really possible, we need to find other ways to do things. Many have recognized this, it is pretty much only Intel and Nvidia who isn't in the HSA foundation as is.
> 
> I don't think we'll see anything bigger than four cores from AMD in consumer space for the foreseeable future. *They will eventually catch up to Intel in IPC*, Intel is already pretty much at the theoretical limit for IPC already. What AMD needs foremost is a better process. Piledriver on ~16 nm finFET:s would probably not be too bad. But when TSMC (possibly GloFO, but I'm skeptical) can deliver that (late 2015?) AMD will have Excavator and probably beyond ready.
> Nice find, thanks
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It will be interesting in a couple of months to see what Kaveri can do, all on AMD:s limited budget and TSMC/GloFo process. I'm pretty sure AM3+ is dead and the 9000-series FX was the last bone thrown to us. Not that I need to upgrade or anything, not that long ago I had a Phenom dual core


That doesn't take much if you look at true benchmarks compiled with a good compiler like YEPPP!
The HSA thing will be great in spaces where there is full control over software like Apple does.


----------



## MrJava

Sorry to be pedantic, but "Yeppp!" is a library not a compiler.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> That doesn't take much if you look at true benchmarks compiled with a good compiler like YEPPP!
> The HSA thing will be great in spaces where there is full control over software like Apple does.


There is always the potential for performance regressions in certain areas. For example piledriver has a bug which causes 256-bit AVX stores to be 8-9 times slower than bulldozer. Agner Fog writes "256-bit memory write operations are exceptionally slow on the Piledriver. So slow, indeed,
that it is better to not use 256-bit registers at all on the Piledriver."

Hopefully steamroller is a generally refined design.

Edit good read for those interested: http://www.agner.org/optimize/microarchitecture.pdf

Talks about the details of various processor uarches and has a "bottlenecks" section for each. You'll notice how empty this bottlenecks section is for intel vs amd in general.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> R9-290x GPU performance and 4930k CPU performance for an APU is a ridiculous pipedream, and there's no way Steamroller would be another Bulldozer.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Sorry to be pedantic, but "Yeppp!" is a library not a compiler.
> There is always the potential for performance regressions in certain areas. For example piledriver has a bug which causes 256-bit AVX stores to be 8-9 times slower than bulldozer. Agner Fog writes "256-bit memory write operations are exceptionally slow on the Piledriver. So slow, indeed,
> that it is better to not use 256-bit registers at all on the Piledriver."
> 
> Hopefully steamroller is a generally refined design.
> 
> Edit good read for those interested: http://www.agner.org/optimize/microarchitecture.pdf
> 
> Talks about the details of various processor uarches and has a "bottlenecks" section for each. You'll notice how empty this bottlenecks section is for intel vs amd in general.


I see well anyways I've read quite a bit of Agner's blog/forum site and it seems that there is no easy AMD spoofer it would be so good.
It can't be like this for ever.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> Probably mentioned already but i cannot remember is there a technical reason why AMD couldn't do a 8 Core SR CPU on the FM2+ Socket?


This is a very good point. It is entirely possible yet it is not happening.

As a few people are realizing in this thread, you can't get anything beyond mid-range performance out of an APU. With our technology it isn't possible.

I would think if AMD was going only FM2+, they would be releasing 8 core SR CPUs on FM2+ so that they could get more people on the FM2+ HSA enabled platform. Instead they are pushing higher end users to AM3+ which AFAIK doesn't support HSA.

I mean, could AMD even fit 7970 performance level GPU in an APU on 20nm or 14nm?


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> This is a very good point. It is entirely possible yet it is not happening.
> 
> As a few people are realizing in this thread, you can't get anything beyond mid-range performance out of an APU. With our technology it isn't possible.
> 
> I would think if AMD was going only FM2+, they would be releasing 8 core SR CPUs on FM2+ so that they could get more people on the FM2+ HSA enabled platform. Instead they are pushing higher end users to AM3+ which AFAIK doesn't support HSA.
> 
> I mean, could AMD even fit 7970 performance level GPU in an APU on 20nm or 14nm?


20nm might be possible, especially if a UHDL process is used. 14nm would probably be possible. The problems are memory and die size; even high-clocked DDR4 would probably have trouble matching the 384 bit GDDR5 that the 7970 needs, and 1536 more stream processors would add a huge amount to the die size, making a more expensive, less efficient chip, which is the opposite of what AMD wants right now.

8 cores would be difficult, because you need a GPU on-die too for HSA as it stands now. Discrete HSA isn't much a concern right now, as nothing currently released supports it (and I doubt VI will, either). I've no doubt that we'll see octocore APUs eventually, but that will probably have to wait for Excavator or later. I could see a hexcore Kaveri sometime in the future, but not octo, I suspect.


----------



## MrJava

Die-stacking might be the answer; CPU die + GPU die + eDRAM. Or at the least APU die + eDRAM. Keep in mind that when you integrate all the components very closely, you get very high bandwidth and low latency communication.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> This is a very good point. It is entirely possible yet it is not happening.
> 
> As a few people are realizing in this thread, you can't get anything beyond mid-range performance out of an APU. With our technology it isn't possible.
> 
> I would think if AMD was going only FM2+, they would be releasing 8 core SR CPUs on FM2+ so that they could get more people on the FM2+ HSA enabled platform. Instead they are pushing higher end users to AM3+ which AFAIK doesn't support HSA.
> 
> I mean, could AMD even fit 7970 performance level GPU in an APU on 20nm or 14nm?


----------



## MrJava

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but a high-end platform these days should have on-die PCIe 3.0.
So FM2+ is a more logical choice for an 8-core steamroller (if it exists). Plus it would provide a nice upgrade path for APU/low-end CPU buyers.

Edit:
Imagine the situation today if FM2 was triple channel, PCIe 3.0 and supported 5 module Komodo CPUs as well as trinity APUs. We would not be having this AM3+ vs FM2+ debate.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> This is a very good point. It is entirely possible yet it is not happening.
> 
> As a few people are realizing in this thread, you can't get anything beyond mid-range performance out of an APU. With our technology it isn't possible.
> 
> I would think if AMD was going only FM2+, they would be releasing 8 core SR CPUs on FM2+ so that they could get more people on the FM2+ HSA enabled platform. Instead they are pushing higher end users to AM3+ which AFAIK doesn't support HSA.
> 
> I mean, could AMD even fit 7970 performance level GPU in an APU on 20nm or 14nm?


----------



## Konbad

THATS basically what i was getting at Java, 1 socket for everything would simplify alot. but what i was saying about the performance i wanted out of an APU was exaggerated i mean if Steamroller can touch I5 Ivy Bridge in Performance for the 4 core APU an 8 Core chip would be super appealing to ALOT of people


----------



## Kuivamaa

AMD is currently executing a nice strategy pushing HSA,new tools like mantle and getting the gaming industry to support multithreading. If they abandon the 3+ module designs, they are shooting themselves in the foot exactly at the time multicore gaming is starting to take off (BF3/4,Crysis 3,Far Cry 3). Even if the future is indeed fusion, that future isn't here yet. I took a look at FM2+ mobos and even the so-called high end ones seem to be desinged around 2 module chips if their power phase configuration is any indication. I would certainly get a desktop 8 core APU and would probably settle for a hexa but not the quad. Too bad these designs seem to be unsuitable for laptops and this is the biggest drawback of modular design vs hyperthreading: Big dies.


----------



## NaroonGTX

AMD isn't getting rid of Socket AM3+ right now. They are merely focusing more on their APU's. For people who want more than 2 modules, that's what FX is for.


----------



## Kuivamaa

It doesn't make much difference though.There will probably be a PD refresh coming out soon which could serve as a bridge till SR/EX 3+ module designs arrive but once the successor to haswell hits desktop, it will be obsolete. They will then urgently need something potent in the 150+ price segment.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Obsolete? Well I guess the current FX chips are all obsolete too, then, yet they are still selling.

They've already done several PD refreshes already (FX-4350, 6350, 9000-series). Another refresh wouldn't make any sense because there's not really anything they could do besides pre-overclock some of the 43xx/63xx chips _even higher_, which would be silly.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Obsolete? Well I guess the current FX chips are all obsolete too, then, yet they are still selling.
> 
> They've already done several PD refreshes already (FX-4350, 6350, 9000-series). Another refresh wouldn't make any sense because there's not really anything they could do besides pre-overclock some of the 43xx/63xx chips _even higher_, which would be silly.


These aren't refreshes,just different skus with higher clock and tdp. I am talking about their server roadmap and "Warsaw" piledriver chips that most likely will find their way to desktop as refreshed FX. I expect something like trinity->richland (higher efficiency and o/c potential).



_"What we are doing with the Warsaw Opteron is ripping out cost and power and increasing performance, and it is compatible with the existing G34 socket," Andrew Feldman, general manager of the server business unit at AMD, explains to El Reg. The chips use the same Piledriver cores as the existing Opteron CPU lineup - with some tweaks, as is always the case - and are implemented in the same 32-nanometer process and etched by GlobalFoundries.

"It is designed for those Open Compute 3.0 boards," Feldman say, "to just drop in and go."

This is significant because the "Roadrunner" Open Compute 3.0 system boards that AMD created with motherboard partners are getting some traction, particularly among data center managers in the financial services area who are not particularly pleased that Facebook has denser and cheaper server infrastructure than they do.

It looks like Warsaw is just an upgrade of the existing Opteron 6300 chips, which came out in November 2012. The Warsaw chip will offer about 20 per cent higher performance per watt than the Opteron 6300, says Feldman, and will come in twelve-core and sixteen-core variants. Importantly, the Warsaw chips will slide into the same exact G34 sockets used in two-socket and four-socket servers and will not require recertification for software, since it is not really a new chip at all - it's a deep bin sort and improving yields that are at work. (Shhhh.)
_

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/18/amd_opteron_arm_server_chips/

Piledriver competes nicely in multithreaded scenarios vs IB and holds its own against haswell but this can't go on forever,another upgrade for intel, perhaps AVX2 seeing utilization in software and it will start to lag behind.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That might see a release on desktop AM3+. People want SR though, not more of PD. It would be a stop-gap for sure, and I guess you'd see more people getting past the 5.0ghz barrier, but eh...


----------



## Kuivamaa

Exactly. I expect them marketed as FX-8520/8550 or something like that, it will look nicely on the shelves ("new" cpu, yay), even better in the reviews (more fps,less consumption double yay) but yeah, stop-gap, this can't go up against broadwell, we can all see that I think.


----------



## MrJava

Sure, they'll still sell piledriver chips for AM3+ while that gap still exists in the product line. Otherwise, AMD is investing in the future that's not possible on the current socket/chipset.

Just take a look at the work AMD is doing around IOMMU and the changes made to GCN to support a unified address space between CPU and GPU. Not to mention virtualized I/O between thousands of CPUs with Freedom Fabric. AMD has more customers in mind than just enthusiasts and gamers (read: servers and HPC) and the CPUs and platforms will have to change accordingly, unless they want all the orders going to IBM and intel.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD isn't getting rid of Socket AM3+ right now. They are merely focusing more on their APU's. For people who want more than 2 modules, that's what FX is for.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I know. What I was getting at is that AMD will keep Vishera (and a possible refreshed slightly upgraded version) of that available for AM3+ for people who want moar coarzzz and all that jazz. And there's still a chance they will do a SR variant in 2H 2014 but we will know in month or so.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Piledriver competes nicely in multithreaded scenarios vs IB and holds its own against haswell but this can't go on forever,another upgrade for intel, perhaps AVX2 seeing utilization in software and it will start to lag behind.


The vast majority of server customers won't use AVX. We're most talking about cloud, transaction processing, and enterprise systems here that like threads and "INT" performance. Trouble is that high core count Xeons are already outstripping Opterons in that regard.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The vast majority of server customers won't use AVX. We're most talking about cloud, transaction processing, and enterprise systems here that like threads and "INT" performance. Trouble is that high core count Xeons are already outstripping Opterons in that regard.


I am more talking about enthusiast desktop, on the server AMD is pretty much hammered by intel and that's one of the reasons FX line future is uncertain. Oh well,November is near.


----------



## MrJava

If memory serves, vishera and abu dhabi opterons based on the same die launched at about the same time. So why would Warsaw (coming in 2H 2014) be an SR-based part?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I know. What I was getting at is that AMD will keep Vishera (and a possible refreshed slightly upgraded version) of that available for AM3+ for people who want moar coarzzz and all that jazz. And there's still a chance they will do a SR variant in 2H 2014 but we will know in month or so.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> So why wouldn't Warsaw (coming in 2H 2014) be an SR-based part?


Because AMD specifically said it is a Piledriver refresh part.


----------



## MrJava

The problem is that enthusiast desktop is such a tiny part of the revenue mix (especially for AMD), that it doesn't make much business sense to design and validate a new chip just for a few people too cheap/lazy to buy a new motherboard.

A good data center/HPC order for AMD would be something like $20M worth of high margin opterons. How many low-margin FX parts do you have to sell to make the same profit?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I am more talking about enthusiast desktop, on the server AMD is pretty much hammered by intel and that's one of the reasons FX line future is uncertain. Oh well,November is near.


----------



## MrJava

They did, read the roadmap. Unless its a typo.

Edit:
Lol, I agree with you. I should've said "So why *would* Warsaw (coming in 2H 2014) be an SR-based part?". Damn grammar.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Because AMD specifically said it is a Piledriver refresh part.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I thought Warsaw was coming before that. Oh well, if AMD continued their tradition of adopting desktop chips from their Opterons, then a SR FX wouldn't seem certain. By the time a SR FX would released, Excavator-based APU would be available, which would be silly. A more likely scenario is that AMD will just release the refreshed successor to Vishera and just end the FX line right there.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The problem is that enthusiast desktop is such a tiny part of the revenue mix (especially for AMD), that it doesn't make much business sense to design and validate a new chip just for a few people too cheap/lazy to buy a new motherboard.
> 
> A good data center/HPC order for AMD would be something like $20M worth of high margin opterons. How many low-margin FX parts do you have to sell to make the same profit?


Then again, those (enthusiasts) are often the opinion makers and influence lower end products (higher volume) as well. AMD is very well aware that although desktop marketshare is shrinking, PC gaming is flourishing.If they want to have a presence in the near future,they absolutely need high end game capable processors.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I thought Warsaw was coming before that. Oh well, if AMD continued their tradition of adopting desktop chips from their Opterons, then a SR FX wouldn't seem certain. By the time a SR FX would released, Excavator-based APU would be available, which would be silly. A more likely scenario is that AMD will just release the refreshed successor to Vishera and just end the FX line right there.


How is this silly? Intel's enthusiast platform (currently served by LGA2011) makes up a tiny portion of its sales. It also lags behind the mainstream platform by roughly an architecture generation.

Also, not sure if you've seen this yet:


9370 is less than a 20% clock increase and it's doing fine against 3930k. 4m/8c SR with 20% IPC increase would basically blow everything Intel has out of the water in this benchmark.

I don't think I can re-iterate this enough. AMD walking away from big x86 cores now would be completely foolish as they finally have software under their control with the console wins. To put it lightly, there will _never be a multi-platform game like Skyrim that performs horribly on AMD hardware ever again_. Let that sink in for a moment as you ponder AMD's CPU plans.


----------



## NaroonGTX

AMD has "big cores" inside their APU's. I'm also well aware that Intel's enthusiast stuff makes up a tiny fraction of their revenue, yet the same is true for AMD as well.

Also, lol @ BF4 beta benchmark. Remember how terribly unoptimized the Alpha benchmarks looked? Let's wait until the final game releases before we talk about benchmarks, and Mantle will further remove any CPU bottlenecks anyway. Anyway, Frostbite 3 can scale up to 8 cores, just like BF3 could do. It was shown via player-testing that the game would use all eight threads, but the main load would be on two threads or so. So the extra threads do help in those 40+ player servers, but it's not necessary to have a great experience. BF3/4 only start to eat up the CPU in multiplayer matches that have 40+ players in them. Even then it's not as horrifically CPU-bound as a game like Planetside 2, that is hardly multi-threaded.

Anyway, my "silly" comment was at them releasing a SR FX chip while more-or-less simultaneously releasing a new uarch (Excavator) around the same time. There are currently no indicators that there will be a CPU-only variant of a server chip, and thus no indication of a SR FX chip. Even so, I'm getting rather tired of repeating this, but we won't know for sure until AMD themselves talk about it and release the newer roadmaps soon, so all this speculation is just a waste of time, really.


----------



## MrJava

I'm not arguing against AMD doing new a high-core count CPU-only chip. I'm simply saying that it makes no sense for them to release on an antiquated platform like AM3+/9XX chipset.

In fact, AM3+ was supposed to die a swift death. Unfortunately, they decided to throw bulldozer-buyers a bone with an updated chip. Doesn't mean they have to continue with the logic indefinitely providing cheap upgrades to a small base of buyers.

The goal here should be to convert many traditional intel customers to AMD, and if that means a new socket/board then so be it.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD has "big cores" inside their APU's. I'm also well aware that Intel's enthusiast stuff makes up a tiny fraction of their revenue, yet the same is true for AMD as well.
> 
> Also, lol @ BF4 beta benchmark. Remember how terribly unoptimized the Alpha benchmarks looked? Let's wait until the final game releases before we talk about benchmarks, and Mantle will further remove any CPU bottlenecks anyway. Anyway, Frostbite 3 can scale up to 8 cores, just like BF3 could do. It was shown via player-testing that the game would use all eight threads, but the main load would be on two threads or so. So the extra threads do help in those 40+ player servers, but it's not necessary to have a great experience. BF3/4 only start to eat up the CPU in multiplayer matches that have 40+ players in them. Even then it's not as horrifically CPU-bound as a game like Planetside 2, that is hardly multi-threaded.
> 
> Anyway, my "silly" comment was at them releasing a SR FX chip while more-or-less simultaneously releasing a new uarch (Excavator) around the same time. There are currently no indicators that there will be a CPU-only variant of a server chip, and thus no indication of a SR FX chip. Even so, I'm getting rather tired of repeating this, but we won't know for sure until AMD themselves talk about it and release the newer roadmaps soon, so all this speculation is just a waste of time, really.


Yeah, I know history has a tenancy to repeat itself, however, this time, we have consoles which have lots of weak cores. Frostbite 3 engine scaling with one main thread is not going to cut it on PS4 and XBone. EA plans on using this engine for lots of their games, hence lots of consoles. 360 was a three core chip and PS3 was basically one core with a bunch of specialized compute units.

Xbone and PS4 are 8 weak jaguar cores.

If anything, I'd expect things to grow more optimized for AMD and more better balanced towards multiple weak cores in order to optimize for consoles. Remember: last generation of PC gaming was Intel dominant in PC and the rest all on their own.

Now AMD has the consoles and a minority in PC. However, AMD's wins actually put Intel single-thread oriented performance into the minority of gaming systems now. So using an engine like which was used in Skyrim would be disastrous for a game company now. It would blow on all the consoles, AMD CPUs, and only really be best on Intel CPUs and the more single-thread oriented consoles of the last generation.

Also, you're implying that BF3 was the pinnacle of 8 core gaming. BF3 was just for EA and DICE to prepare for next generation of consoles having 8 cores and testing the waters, if you will. In fact, I made this argument repeatedly when we didn't know what was in the PS4 and Xbone and there were only rumors of them being AMD products. The argument that EA and DICE were testing Frostbite scaling on lots of cores to prepare for an 8 core AMD solution in the next gen consoles. Them doing that in BF3 for any other reason than that seems completely illogical. They were either optimizing for 8 core AMD FX or they were preparing for the next generation of consoles. But my point is that BF3 was a multi-core beta, if you will, and BF4 will be an application of the lessons learned.

Funny you speak of multi-thread in Planetside 2. That's one of the major problems Sony is addressing with the game right now.

Also, Mantle will make CPU bottlenecks more apparent as you're reducing the GPU bottleneck, and the next bottleneck in gaming performance is generally the CPU. I think you have it backwards. Making the GPU get the same results with less resources means that it's going to become less of a bottleneck. It's much more like running highly optimized code on your CPU and having that reduce that bottleneck, as opposed to say, having Skyrim use x87 instructions everywhere and having that poor code bottleneck the CPU.

I don't think this is a waste of time to speculate on these things. The software will adapt to the hardware, like it did with BF3 and AMD APUs in consoles, usually before the hardware is announced. This happens because AMD is working with game developers to get the most out of the AMD chips in the next generation of hardware.

I look to the software we will see in the future and I estimate the future hardware based on the future software.

My big, glaring red flag for you to look at right now is that: PS4 and Xbone both have 8 cores, but several of those are still reserved for the OS (which may not have been expected when DICE was toying with BF3). So now, they are still optimizing for 8 cores and not 5 or 6? If the future was to remain quad core for PC gaming and 4 or 5 jaguar cores for console, DICE and EA would not be so concerned with 8 core scaling in Frostbite 3.

I would think it is safe to assume that AMD has plans on partnering with EA/DICE to push new technologies based around an AMD-centric gaming platform. It also explains why Nvidia is (more than likely) paying to get so close to Valve and being so vocal about it. AMD is more than likely going to announce high end BF4 rigs with AMD CPU + GPU and Nvidia is preparing for that message by making lots of noise about how they have wins with Steam Machines so they don't look completely pathetic when AMD comes out and starts bragging about console wins and BF4 working great on AMD gaming platform.

I also lean towards this because I think it is possible AMD has learned from their mistakes of releasing hardware before the software is there. This happened with 7990 and the entire release I was shaking my head asking why they wouldn't wait to release the frame pacing drivers.

However, look at this from an AMD marketing perspective. If AMD released SR FX now, it would be benched on Starcraft 2 and a whole bunch of last gen games that the module architecture sucks at.

Now imagine AMD releases SR FX 4m/8c part in spring of 2014. The gaming benchmark suite now consists of games like BF4 and other console ports which were designed to run on 8 weak cores. Suddenly AMD has the best gaming platform because they have software for their system on it.

It is not that hard to comprehend. SR FX benched on single-thread dominated games would look horrible even if AMD managed a 20% IPC increase. Even 30% IPC increase in single thread would make things look difficult for AMD.

But you see that BF4 benchmark? If AMD could get SIMILAR scaling compared to Intel like in that, they'd be in extremely good shape against Intel for gaming.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'm not arguing against AMD doing new a high-core count CPU-only chip. I'm simply saying that it makes no sense for them to release on an antiquated platform like AM3+/9XX chipset.


No objections here. I wouldn't mind at all having an octocore on FM2+ or something like that but in that case they should come up with a more "beefy" chipset than they currently have for quad APU.


----------



## Stay Puft

Has anyone seen any ES Steamroller chips being tested anywhere? I havent seen a damn thing about it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Not sure how I implied BF3 was the "pinnacle" of eight-core gaming. The point is that outside of the higher player-counts and such, there wasn't much need for that many cores, but having more threads can ease the overall load at super-high resolutions and in multi-GPU configs. People with four cores were just fine in BF3 even in 64-man rooms. BF4 is more like a big expansion pack for BF3 and doesn't have any mind-blowing physics simulations or anything in it. And like I said, with Mantle, such CPU limitations will be rendered moot. Yeah it would expose CPU bottlenecks quicker, but people wouldn't need such beast CPU's in the first place unless they had some crazy setup playing on ultra-high resolutions and such.
Quote:


> I don't think this is a waste of time to speculate on these things.


I was mainly referring to speculating on the future of AM3+ and whether or not it would have a SR FX released on it, etc.
Quote:


> However, look at this from an AMD marketing perspective. If AMD released SR FX now, it would be benched on Starcraft 2 and a whole bunch of last gen games that the module architecture sucks at.
> 
> Now imagine AMD releases SR FX 4m/8c part in spring of 2014. The gaming benchmark suite now consists of games like BF4 and other console ports which were designed to run on 8 weak cores. Suddenly AMD has the best gaming platform because they have software for their system on it.


It's not the modular architecture that was the problem for less-than-stellar results in those games, it was the weak single-threaded perf. We don't know how much SR will improve on this front, but the removal of the multi-threaded scaling bottleneck and whatever increase in single-core perf would mean these issues would no longer exist on SR-powered chips.

It's also worth noting that many CPU benchmarks will choose some of the dumbest games and the dumbest scenarios possible to test the chips with. Yes, let's all benchmark BF3 and declare that the CPU doesn't matter much because 99% of them all perform the same, even though most people are playing the MP, where the CPU definitely starts to matter when a high player count is present. There were hardly any MP benchmarks out there for that game. I know MP benchmarks are generally harder to get down due to the completely unpredictable nature, but the least they could've done was provided some insight. I also don't understand sites who benchmark games that came out in 1902 for whatever reason.

It was brilliant of AMD to ensure that their hardware was in the new consoles, because it will force a push for true multi-threaded coding in games, where the coding overall has been consistently terrible for many years now. There's no guarantee that every game will use all of the threads available (and I think some of the threads on the X1 are reserved for the OS as well) on the new systems, but at least they will be better optimized when they come to the PC.
Quote:


> It is not that hard to comprehend. SR FX benched on single-thread dominated games would look horrible even if AMD managed a 20% IPC increase. Even 30% IPC increase in single thread would make things look difficult for AMD.


I don't think this is true. Even with Piledriver and its general PII-level performance, single-threaded games aren't unplayable by any means. It's not too often that AMD chips get blown away, even in games that don't use all eight threads.

--
edit
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stay Puft*
> Has anyone seen any ES Steamroller chips being tested anywhere? I havent seen a damn thing about it.


There was an ES for an SR-powered APU a few months ago, but it was for some mobile variant. Aside from that, there isn't much info available on SR besides the widely-known general stuff.


----------



## Konbad

on the topic of Mantle, it would be safe to Assume that Crytek would be on the mantle train also, i would also put money on IdTech since Carmack for years has stated he wants a lower level API to get more direct access to the GPU etc, now if lets say Unreal and Valve Pick up Mantle support also and maybe Dunia or InfinityWard that would go along way to cementing Mantle as a Solid API, its apparently open so whether nvidia wants to add their stuff to it remains to be seen. my main idea on why AMD should keep with 8 Core Stuff is mainly everyone's optimizing for more cores and intel is adding more cores with their next gen CPU's. the enthusiast market while may not be the most profitable they are the ones hyping and talking about your products they are the ones the average mainstream user consults on what they should be looking at purchasing. they shouldn't be discarded


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think once people see the performance gains you get with Mantle, other devs will follow suit. I think Square Enix will do it since they were talking about optimizing their engines for multi-core usage as well as APU support, and Capcom will also probably follow suit. As much s*** as people talk on Capcom, their proprietary engine is pretty awesome. All of their PC games from 2006 and onward that I played were really well-optimized on PC, despite being console-centric games. I did research and found this is because that's what the engine was meant to do -- scale well with multi-core usage and be easy to port across platforms.

Since AMD has the consoles using their tech, it's inevitable. All the pieces will fall in place, and unless devs want to get mocked for refusing to move into the future and optimize their engines, they will adopt this API as well. The cool thing about Mantle is how it doesn't necessarily lock other people out -- BF4 will still support DirectX for people who don't have GCN cards. And since Mantle supports Linux as well, this will make Linux a viable gaming platform in the future as well.


----------



## Konbad

oh yeah, if people think AMD hasnt been working with valve as well they are ******ed im fairly sure valve will implement this for source 2. no need for source since it will run on a 486







, i just hope nvidia doesnt try to bring back glide as they havent really got anything to push it, i would like to see whether the consoles will support mantle, i mean SONY i cant see them not because if there is performance to be had sony has no loss , MS on the other hand will probably force DX onto developers which will be funny if mantle does have a performance gain and the PS4 gets a greater margin on performance and PS4 version of games gets features the X1 doesnt.

TBH i would like 8 core on FM2+ since it has alot more features than AM3+


----------



## NaroonGTX

FM2+ is generally a better chipset than AM3+ is. Hell, what if they release the refreshed Vishera's on FM2+ next year? They wouldn't be SR-powered, but the 3M & 4M variants would be there.


----------



## Konbad

there not fast enough, compared to what i already own, i mean yes i would finally get sata3 6gb and usb3 but thats not enough to want me to upgrade my mobo and cpu just yet. another 15-20% on an 8350 @ same clocks would be(best case). I want APU Conf today so i can hear something exciting about steamroller


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Not sure how I implied BF3 was the "pinnacle" of eight-core gaming. The point is that outside of the higher player-counts and such, there wasn't much need for that many cores, but having more threads can ease the overall load at super-high resolutions and in multi-GPU configs. People with four cores were just fine in BF3 even in 64-man rooms. BF4 is more like a big expansion pack for BF3 and doesn't have any mind-blowing physics simulations or anything in it. And like I said, with Mantle, such CPU limitations will be rendered moot. Yeah it would expose CPU bottlenecks quicker, but people wouldn't need such beast CPU's in the first place unless they had some crazy setup playing on ultra-high resolutions and such.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think this is a waste of time to speculate on these things.
> 
> 
> 
> I was mainly referring to speculating on the future of AM3+ and whether or not it would have a SR FX released on it, etc.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> However, look at this from an AMD marketing perspective. If AMD released SR FX now, it would be benched on Starcraft 2 and a whole bunch of last gen games that the module architecture sucks at.
> 
> Now imagine AMD releases SR FX 4m/8c part in spring of 2014. The gaming benchmark suite now consists of games like BF4 and other console ports which were designed to run on 8 weak cores. Suddenly AMD has the best gaming platform because they have software for their system on it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It's not the modular architecture that was the problem for less-than-stellar results in those games, it was the weak single-threaded perf. We don't know how much SR will improve on this front, but the removal of the multi-threaded scaling bottleneck and whatever increase in single-core perf would mean these issues would no longer exist on SR-powered chips.
> 
> It's also worth noting that many CPU benchmarks will choose some of the dumbest games and the dumbest scenarios possible to test the chips with. Yes, let's all benchmark BF3 and declare that the CPU doesn't matter much because 99% of them all perform the same, even though most people are playing the MP, where the CPU definitely starts to matter when a high player count is present. There were hardly any MP benchmarks out there for that game. I know MP benchmarks are generally harder to get down due to the completely unpredictable nature, but the least they could've done was provided some insight. I also don't understand sites who benchmark games that came out in 1902 for whatever reason.
> 
> It was brilliant of AMD to ensure that their hardware was in the new consoles, because it will force a push for true multi-threaded coding in games, where the coding overall has been consistently terrible for many years now. There's no guarantee that every game will use all of the threads available (and I think some of the threads on the X1 are reserved for the OS as well) on the new systems, but at least they will be better optimized when they come to the PC.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> It is not that hard to comprehend. SR FX benched on single-thread dominated games would look horrible even if AMD managed a 20% IPC increase. Even 30% IPC increase in single thread would make things look difficult for AMD.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I don't think this is true. Even with Piledriver and its general PII-level performance, single-threaded games aren't unplayable by any means. It's not too often that AMD chips get blown away, even in games that don't use all eight threads.
Click to expand...

It kind of felt that way when you said BF3 still needed a sting single thread. There is no way a game like that is going to run well on a 1.6ghz Jaguar part. Things NEED to change from BF3, and BF3 already, as you mentioned, requires at least 4 good cores for more demanding sections of the game. And yes, you absolutely hit the nail on the head with the anti-coars folks. I've seen enough videos of people going "MY CORE I3 IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR BF3!!!!" and then showing the scene in single player where they walk through the ship corridor.

It is the module architecture though, but it's more of the implementation. Disabling one core per CU/module on PD and BD can give you close to 40% increase in single thread at the same clocks. I'm not saying the entire idea of AMD's modules are flawed, but the current implementations have massive flaws.

I am kind of aiming for AMD actually beating Intel at console oriented games. The software changes are more than enough, I've seen some crazy stuff just on Gentoo. I've also seen it not matter at all.

However a modest 20% increase in total performance out of AMD at FX prices would make much of Intel's CPUs obsolete for gaming on next gen console ports.

Also, BF3 used Frostbite 2.0 and BF4 will use Frostbite 3.0. It is much more than a bunch of DLC.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I didn't say BF3 relied on a strong single thread, I said most of the load was on two or three threads (there's a topic in the AMD CPU section where people were testing the CPU on AMD 8320/8350 and it shows most work being done on six threads, though the other two threads do get used at some points).

But yeah, you're more than correct about the 1.6 ghz Jaguar cores. The eight threads are definitely necessary for the consoles. I think BF4 will show how when it comes to *properly* multi-threaded games, there's no real reason to pick Intel over AMD. I don't think any gamer _needs_ to go out and spend over $300 on a CPU.

I know BF4 is using Frostbite 3, but I was more talking about the content of BF4 itself moreso than the tech that powers it, lol. I don't feel that BF4 is a huge step over BF3, but that's just me.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Since we were talking about Mantle: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fgamegpu.ru%2Fzheleznye-novosti%2Ffotografii-gpu-hawaii-i-videokarty-r9-290x.html

More engines will be announced that will use Mantle in November. That will be a pretty big conference. Star Citizen (the game that got a very long showing at GPU '14) runs on CryEngine 3, so we know that CryEngine will support Mantle.


----------



## Kuivamaa

The big question is UE4 really and not Cryengine(Crytek is published by EA and participates in Gaming Evolved already). Earlier this year I saw they incorporated Intel threading tools in it but I am sure they wouldn't wanna stay away from the console optimization party and will support mantle too.


----------



## Konbad

well yeah Frostbite and Crytek are basically 100% deadlocks, if unreal4, idtech5(i mean cmon Carmack been wanting this forever so bets on this are high) and if valve port source or even just source2 that would be legendary for the API most of the other larger companies will probably implement it also, if it looks like its going to have a large support base. not sure about consoles. MS would be the one wanting to stop it running on the X1 but that could lead to issues for them with x1 games having noticeable features stripped because of it. i mean AMD said it will be open once its Rock Solid so Nvidia could add support for it from Maxwell Onwards im sure nvidia isnt interested in having high end cards slaughtered by AMD midrange cards. and if nvidia brings back something like Glide i dont think they have the momentum to make it work APU14 is going to be super interesting


----------



## NaroonGTX

It's open but I don't expect Nvidia to rehaul their GPU's and make them use the GCN architecture anytime soon, lol. Pretty sure they would have to pay AMD for that, and that's the last thing they would do.


----------



## charlie310

When can i expect the high-end steamroller to be released? My rig has been due for an upgrade, and i refuse to sink money on Intel's greed.


----------



## NaroonGTX

We don't know if there will be any SR-based chips with more than two modules on them released. You will have to wait until AMD's APU conference which is scheduled for mid-November.


----------



## MrJava

You might not even know in November. Remember that its a dev conference for APUs, so APIs/libraries will be announced/detailed along with Kaveri and maybe future APUs. No guarantee that anything else will even get a mention.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> We don't know if there will be any SR-based chips with more than two modules on them released. You will have to wait until AMD's APU conference which is scheduled for mid-November.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That's true, but generally the new roadmaps will be released around that time, which would show a good deal of what's to come in 2014, which in turn would put these SR FX rumors/speculation to rest.


----------



## istudy92

cant wait for november 11th!!
or when is the date for roadmap? 11th right?


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> FM2+ is generally a better chipset than AM3+ is.


I agree. What is not to like about the A88X chipset? 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports, 10 USB2 and 4 USB3. The high end boards I've seen (Asus A88X-PRO and GA-F2A88X-UP4) have IOMMU for full passthrough, as the AMD Richland K-CPU's aren't crippled in any way regarding virtualization. Ram speed seems great according to the tests I've seen, I don't think they'll be worse with Kaveri.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Hell, what if they release the refreshed Vishera's on FM2+ next year? They wouldn't be SR-powered, but the 3M & 4M variants would be there.


I don't think AMD will release anything new for AM3+, but I'm repeating myself. The 990FX-chipset is really antiquated, essentially a re-brand of 890FX that was released back in 2009. 1090FX was canceled years ago. Hypertransport is being phased out. Etc etc. It wouldn't make any sense to release anything for this platform really.


----------



## sdlvx

That is the thing about AM3+ and HEDT, with AMD getting control over the software development in games (indirectly), they don't have to release new hardware to get massive gains out of their existing hardware lineup. Meaning their product line-up will look a lot better simply by changing the software, as opposed to changing hardware.

Even if AMD kept with the same AM3+ and PD Vishera platform until late 2014, with the change in game engine design I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who said PD sucked changed their minds.

FX CPUs are not exactly a cash cow for AMD. They could be just putting the platform on hold in the hopes that the new consoles will push Vishera sales, so they end up with more sales without R&D dropped on a new platform.

Bear with me here, there's a lot of ifs, but...

*if* AMD can get SR to scale like they are claiming (roughly 30% over BD, 20% over PD)
*if* game engines continue to scale on AMD hardware like the latest BF4 Beta benchmark
*if* AMD Keeps 300mm^2 die CPUs around the $200 mark

They could completely dominate the gaming PC market when it comes to CPUs.

I do think Intel knows something we don't, they're coming with 6 core and 8 core Enthusiast parts next year. 4930k is only 257mm^2, smaller than Vishera yet Intel is still asking $500+ for it. haswell-e should be around the same size for a 6 core and I see no reason why Intel would change their game of selling 257mm^2 chips for $500+ as the margins must be massive on those chips other than having a good reason from competition.

I've been advocating Intel killing off what they refer to as the mainstream market for gaming PCs for a while, and it's going to happen when Intel doesn't release anything beyond quad core on their mainstream socket and enthusiast starts as hex-core. The next gen of games, if BF4 Beta continues to scale how it has been, will mean going mainstream Intel socket will be a far cry from optimal and will be more of a budget system. It's going to anger a lot of Intel kiddos who are used to buying mainstream parts for cheap.

Anyways, I find it odd that there are 8 core IB chips out there, yet HEDT doesn't get it for Intel. Yet suddenly Intel is going to add two more cores to their enthusiast lineup on the same node? This is more than likely going to force Hex core prices down for Haswell-E while still keeping the die size the same. Which is absolutely what you don't want to do to maximize profits. Intel is reaping ridiculous profits off of 4930k, 2600k was 215mm^2 chip and sold for like $320. 4930k is 257mm^2 and goes for $580.

I don't see why Intel would just throw away their massive profits on such a small die by adding to the die size. Unless you think they're going to make their entire enthusiast lineup start at $580?

But regardless, I am asking the question: "if AMD is going to bail on the HEDT market, why is Intel doing something that would more than likely reduce their profits when they have a really, really profitable thing going on with the status quo?"

IMO Intel knows what we don't and they're scared, so they're going to increase die size, decrease profits, in order to stay competitive.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> I agree. What is not to like about the A88X chipset? 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports, 10 USB2 and 4 USB3..


4 USB2 Ports and 10 USB3? that would be nicer









if AMD can get their 20-30% increase their equivalent to the 8350 will be a very sought after CPU especially if they keep the price the same as the 8350(launch). also haswell-e top chip vs ivy-e will absolutely kill it minimum 40% boost for im guessing the same cost. i wouldn't be surprised if intel dropped the K series of CPU's from mainstream and left overclocking only to the LGA-2011 crowd.

can only hope steamroller delivers or exceeds what AMD has stated and AMD still make a 8 Core Variant with a 4ghz Clock i would be all over that as 8350 is close to being tempting over what i currently have


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> *if* AMD Keeps 300mm^2 die CPUs around the $200 mark


This won't happen. If steamroller is trully as good as expected, the new top of the line cpu will cost once again ~280-300 just like top phenom II or FX-8150 initially. I simply can't see a cpu that would rival sandy on ST duties while stomps haswell i5s and beats quad i7s on MT, sold for cheap.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't think they would raise prices so drastically again. The AMD from today isn't the same one from back then. Not to mention AMD has repeatedly said they aren't interested in the CPU speed-wars and such anymore. They would take advantage of having a lower-priced product against the competition that offers similar (and sometimes greater) performance.


----------



## Kuivamaa

It will be lower priced than i7,that's what I am saying. Selling big dies so cheap hurts them, no question about that.


----------



## btupsx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> This won't happen. If steamroller is trully as good as expected, the new top of the line cpu will cost once again ~280-300 just like top phenom II or FX-8150 initially. I simply can't see a cpu that would rival sandy on ST duties while stomps haswell i5s and beats quad i7s on MT, sold for cheap.


Lucent point. If SR delivers in a major way, the $260-$280 price point would be the sweet spot. I'd pay that all day, any day. They *could* rightfully charge $280-$300, but I think ~$300 approaches a psychological wall that they would be wise to stay just under. At or above that, and it becomes a much murkier decision vs. something like a quad i7.


----------



## Artev

i dont know what this thread is about but I am a big fan of steamrollers


----------



## NaroonGTX

The problem is, even when Phenom II launched it didn't have the performance crown, and was getting beat clock-for-clock by the competition. All of the Zambezi parts were ludicrously overpriced as well, especially since the performance was actually _lower_ than that of PII except in a small amount of situations. They had some of the top-end Thuban x6's at $180 and then had the gall to price the Zambezi hexacore at a few dollars higher than it. Those pricings were based more on tradition and expectations than anything logical. When AMD came out Vishera, the prices actually made sense. They compared the octocores to i5's instead of trying to 'go all the way' with $300 and above.

I also think the price ranges are just flat-out ridiculous. An unlocked i5 typically goes for $200~230. Then you have the 'normal' i7's which are $100 more expensive than those, and why? Just for worthless hyperthreading where only a handful of apps truly use it to its potential? I expect Steamroller FX (if and when it even exists) to retail for either the same prices Vishera do now, or slightly higher. But I don't expect a huge jump just because they would be winning more benchmarks or anything.


----------



## Seronx

bdver4:
https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2013-09/msg00155/bdver4.patch

bdver3 over bdver2:
XSAVEOPT
FSGSBase

bdver4 over bdver2:
XSAVEOPT
FSGSBase
AVX2
MOVBE
BMI2
RDRND


----------



## re73

That is interesting, bdver4 is supposed to be excavator, isn't it?
Could that medan that they might skip SR on FX (or whatever the performance CPU would be called, IF there is one I mean)?
Or how long in advance are the patches issued?


----------



## MrJava

Maybe that "leaked excavator dieshot" wasn't fake after all. Most interesting thing there is added support for RdRand.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> bdver4:
> https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2013-09/msg00155/bdver4.patch
> 
> bdver3 over bdver2:
> XSAVEOPT
> FSGSBase
> 
> bdver4 over bdver2:
> XSAVEOPT
> FSGSBase
> AVX2
> MOVBE
> BMI2
> RDRND


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *re73*
> 
> That is interesting, bdver4 is supposed to be excavator, isn't it?
> Could that medan that they might skip SR on FX (or whatever the performance CPU would be called, IF there is one I mean)?
> Or how long in advance are the patches issued?


http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwNDY
SR support came when PD came out, basically.

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2011-07/msg00842.html
PD support came a little before BD was released

Since bdver2, it seems that the next generation gets GCC support within a few months of release. So given past trends it's safe to assume SR is coming out soon. However given AMD's APU focus lately I would expect that we'd see APUs first this time. If you recall, APU used to come after desktop.

If you remember, there was no bdver1 APU. bdver2 APU and CPU released around the same time. bdver2b (richland PD) came out for APU without CPU. Now we are looking at bdver3 coming either before CPU or for CPU not to come out at all.

I'm personally taking this history and AMD saying they are going APU focus to mean APU gets the good stuff first and then it trickles over. However I have a lot of reservations because it seems like Richland PD didn't trickle over. So right now I'm personally torn between the signs that AMD is done with CPU only or that they can't do it unless they want to just give that market away when they're pushing gaming so hard.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> If you recall, APU used to come after desktop.


Not really. You're right that there wasn't a bdver1 APU. Trinity released in mobile products around mid-2012 I think, then came out on desktop in early Oct. 2012 and the Vishera series CPU parts came out a week or two later. And now it looks like Kaveri will hit desktop first and then hit mobile later.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Maybe that "leaked excavator dieshot" wasn't fake after all.


You might tell yourself that when going to bed. It still doesn't change the fact that the die shot is still Steamroller.

--
I've been checking other compilers and only in GCC does bdver3 support xsaveopt/FSGSBase. bdver3 might not be Steamroller but Richland with erroneous Steamroller optimizations for GCC.

bdver1 = Zambezi, Valencia, Zurich, and Interlagos.
bdver2 = Trinity, Vishera, Seoul, Delhi, and Abu Dhabi.
bdver3 = Richland and Warsaw.
bdver4 = Kaveri and etc.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> You might tell yourself that when going to bed. It still doesn't change the fact that the die shot is still Steamroller.
> 
> --
> I've been checking other compilers and only in GCC does bdver3 support xsaveopt/FSGSBase. bdver3 might not be Steamroller but Richland with erroneous Steamroller optimizations for GCC.
> 
> bdver1 = Zambezi, Valencia, Zurich, and Interlagos.
> bdver2 = Trinity, Vishera, Seoul, Delhi, and Abu Dhabi.
> bdver3 = Richland and Warsaw.
> bdver4 = Kaveri and etc.


when you put it that makes warsaw on par with richland as in the pd refresh which still leaves room for sr fx.. but who knows.. too much circumstances either.. I still think fx steamroller will come out


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The problem is, even when Phenom II launched it didn't have the performance crown, and was getting beat clock-for-clock by the competition. All of the Zambezi parts were ludicrously overpriced as well, especially since the performance was actually _lower_ than that of PII except in a small amount of situations. They had some of the top-end Thuban x6's at $180 and then had the gall to price the Zambezi hexacore at a few dollars higher than it. Those pricings were based more on tradition and expectations than anything logical. When AMD came out Vishera, the prices actually made sense. They compared the octocores to i5's instead of trying to 'go all the way' with $300 and above.
> 
> I also think the price ranges are just flat-out ridiculous. An unlocked i5 typically goes for $200~230. Then you have the 'normal' i7's which are $100 more expensive than those, and why? Just for worthless hyperthreading where only a handful of apps truly use it to its potential? I expect Steamroller FX (if and when it even exists) to retail for either the same prices Vishera do now, or slightly higher. But I don't expect a huge jump just because they would be winning more benchmarks or anything.


Winning benchmarks would mean the price would go straight up,AMD has done it before, they even had 1k chips back in the day. And let's not forget the jump in price between A10-5800k and 6800k without that big of an improvement. Their initial plan with FX octocores was to occupy the same price segment with thubans but reviews forced massive price cuts. Intel segmentation and pricing is ridiculous but they effectively are a monopoly. AMD isn't really putting any pressure to them right now, they just offer an alternative.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Once again though, the current AMD isn't the same company as it was back then. The Richland 6800k being $150, $20 more than the Trinity predecessor, is the only case of a price jump so far. That doesn't really mean that we would see prices as high as they have been in the past, if SR FX even comes out. I expect the top-end Kaveri to replace Richland in the $150 range. Having to pay more than that for an APU would be insanity.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Again,AMD practices change when they are or feel more competitive. All FX cpus are unlocked, but not all APU are. If kaveri modules are indeed the ones in the leaked die shot and the cpu performance skyrockets while also having a potent ,HSA capable igpu, it will be expensive, i5 expensive.


----------



## NaroonGTX

If the company isn't the same, how can you say the practices will be the same? They offer locked APU's for people who aren't into overclocking, because most APU's aren't meant for enthusiasts. The FX line was marketed towards gamers and people who wanted "moar coarz". It made sense to have all of them unlocked. They also did the smart thing by not having 500 different SKU's in the FX range with very minimal differences.

And lol it definitely won't be as expensive as an i5. That's not even the target market for these APU's.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Again,AMD practices change when they are or feel more competitive. All FX cpus are unlocked, but not all APU are. If kaveri modules are indeed the ones in the leaked die shot and the cpu performance skyrockets while also having a potent ,HSA capable igpu, it will be expensive, i5 expensive.


I would agree if they had more market share first. Having 6-8% doesn't give you the freedom to charge whatever as Intel could do. For a while at least they will tread lightly and let the innovations do the talking.


----------



## MrJava

Stop trying to bend reality to support your theories.
In any case you could easily verify this by writing a program that executes XSAVEOPT instruction, running it on a richland processor and seeing whether it crashes.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> You might tell yourself that when going to bed. It still doesn't change the fact that the die shot is still Steamroller.
> 
> --
> I've been checking other compilers and only in GCC does bdver3 support xsaveopt/FSGSBase. bdver3 might not be Steamroller but Richland with erroneous Steamroller optimizations for GCC.
> 
> bdver1 = Zambezi, Valencia, Zurich, and Interlagos.
> bdver2 = Trinity, Vishera, Seoul, Delhi, and Abu Dhabi.
> bdver3 = Richland and Warsaw.
> bdver4 = Kaveri and etc.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I would agree if they had more market share first. Having 6-8% doesn't give you the freedom to charge whatever as Intel could do. For a while at least they will tread lightly and let the innovations do the talking.


The only thing AMD needs as much as money is Market Share if the chips do perform they will keep prices low as possible just to have them flying off the shelf


----------



## Seronx

Do you guys think Steamroller will support Jaguar extensions?

Debugging:
AMD Streaming Performance Monitor
AMD Data Breakpoint Extension
AMD Performance TSC
AMD L2I Performance Counter Ext.

Powersaving:
AMD Processor Feedback Interface
AMD Processor Accumulator


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> If the company isn't the same, how can you say the practices will be the same? They offer locked APU's for people who aren't into overclocking, because most APU's aren't meant for enthusiasts. The FX line was marketed towards gamers and people who wanted "moar coarz". It made sense to have all of them unlocked. They also did the smart thing by not having 500 different SKU's in the FX range with very minimal differences.
> 
> And lol it definitely won't be as expensive as an i5. That's not even the target market for these APU's.


I am saying this because the situation they are right now with pricing, is unprecedented for the last decade. Their biggest die going for so cheap (8320) is an anomaly which they surely want fixed asap, the notion that it is the normal way feels like wishful thinking to me ,that we are gonna be getting cheap stuff from AMD from now on. The only reason that practically their whole range of chips costs for the first time ever less than 200 (with the sole exception of the 9xxx series) is that they were forced to do it after zambezi mistakes.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> You might not even know in November. Remember that its a dev conference for APUs, so APIs/libraries will be announced/detailed along with Kaveri and maybe future APUs. No guarantee that anything else will even get a mention.


We will know in November. For the umphteenth time. The global marketing manager, John Taylor made that abundantly clear in conversation with me.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> 4 USB2 Ports and 10 USB3? that would be nicer


All USB3 would be nicest, *if* the legacy USB2 support was flawless. The Gigabyte board I have been looking at have another USB3 chip for an additional 4 ports. A VIA chip I believe.

I think the biggest hurdle for AMD is GloFo/TSMC process. It looks like they won't have anything better 2014 than TSMC 28 nm. That's comparable to Intel 32 nm. AMD won't have any access to a finFET process until 2015 it looks like. Way behind Intel, both in performance, power efficiency and most important profit margins. Terrible for competition, and TSMC/GloFo are not really known to deliver on time, and TSMCs finFETs might not be on the market until mid 2015. GloFo seems to be focused on low power, nothing that AMD can make big 4 GHz chips from.That is what I think it looks like, please tell me I'm wrong :-/


----------



## Kuivamaa

Ιntel is also focused on low power, nothing new here.


----------



## TheLAWNOOB

Anyone have any info on quad core SR APUs regarding frequency, iGPU, and price?

I want an APU with at least 7750 level graphics to replace my i3 and 7850, and I don't want a downgrade in single core performance.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheLAWNOOB*
> 
> Anyone have any info on quad core SR APUs regarding frequency, iGPU, and price?
> 
> I want an APU with at least 7750 level graphics to replace my i3 and 7850, and I don't want a downgrade in single core performance.


Well if you want rumors the only rumored info we have seen on Steamroller APU's is actually that they lost the ability to clock high and would be running closer to 2.6GHz. Hopefully something changed since that rumor 8 months ago. Other than that we have very little info. Some supposed benches here and there but all with one serious flaw of one sort or another calling into question the validity of the benchmarks.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Where did that rumor come from? All I remember was an engineering sample that had low clock rates, because it was obviously a mobile variant of a SR APU.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Where did that rumor come from? All I remember was an engineering sample that had low clock rates, because it was obviously a *mobile* variant of a SR APU.


Exactly that. It was obviously a laptop chip. I hate stating the obvious but there is no way SR is bringing so huge performance boost that would allow AMD to drop frequency by more than 30% compared to their current desktop quads (they are often clocked around 3.8-4.0) and still be competitive to itself and intel alike. Not to mention it would be mission impossible for their marketing department to sell something like that. "Hey ,forget our strategy of championing high frequencies, and nevermind the rest of our cpu/apu range that is clocked much higher, buy this 2.6 cpu!".


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah lol, there's no way the frequencies will be lowered drastically like that, because everyone would be raising eyebrows ''. It would be a very weird situation for their PR department. People seem to forget that Steamroller is a further evolution off of BD and PD, not a complete re-work.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> "Hey ,forget our strategy of championing high frequencies, and nevermind the rest of our cpu/apu range that is clocked much higher, buy this 2.6 cpu!".


I completely agree but isn't this exactly what is going to happen with the High Density Libraries in Excavator?


----------



## NaroonGTX

HDL will drop the clocks a bit, but by then the performance will have increased so much that the clock drops will be negated. Like how Pentium 4 had those high clock rates (for the time) but was getting owned by the A64 at much lower clocks. Then Intel came out with Core 2 which had lower clocks than P4 yet had much higher performance anyway.


----------



## Papadope

Definitely, I meant it more so in terms of marketing. Intel did it by changing the name completey. I wonder what AMD would do.


----------



## sdlvx

I've been asking around but I thought I'd ask you guys too since this might be relevant.

Hawaii is 24% larger die with 37% more shaders (as well as other parts greatly increases, but CUs/shaders are the largest part of the die).

Do you folks think AMD used HDL on Hawaii? Frequencies stayed the same as Tahiti or possibly a little slower. I've seen numbers between 800mhz and 1050mhz.

I ask because if AMD did use HDL on Hawaii, then we can make safe assumptions in regards to how that would translate to a CPU. Between whatever AMD did with Hawaii and hoping to the next node, AMD could either greatly increase the number of cores on FX OR significantly reduce die size. Either way those would increase AMD CPU profits drastically. Specially if Hawaii used HDL and the hit it took in clockspeed is not as large as Hawaii is showing. I guess we need to see how temps and OC results are as well and maybe some sort of proof HDL was used.

I do think it is a terrible time for AMD to release desktop platform. Right on the cusp of a new node, and DDR4. Even disregarding mobile or whatever you think AMD is going to do with APUs, now is a bad time to release a platform on a socket you plan on keeping around for a while.

Also, selling a chip with a lower frequency is very difficult. I recall when I jumped from P4 to Opteron 165. I felt really dumb for going from a 3.2ghz p4 Prescott, but the Opteron at 2.9ghz blew away the P4. Regardless it's not something that's easy to convince people of.

It's even quite difficult to convince people that GPU clockspeeds are irrelevant between Kepler and GCN sometimes.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I completely agree but isn't this exactly what is going to happen with the High Density Libraries in Excavator?


Not by that much and even in that case they would market something else,like more cores or what have you.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've been asking around but I thought I'd ask you guys too since this might be relevant.
> 
> Hawaii is 24% larger die with 37% more shaders (as well as other parts greatly increases, but CUs/shaders are the largest part of the die).
> 
> Do you folks think AMD used HDL on Hawaii? Frequencies stayed the same as Tahiti or possibly a little slower. I've seen numbers between 800mhz and 1050mhz.


You don't just take libraries from one process type and node and apply them to something completely different. So no they did not use the high density libraries that are planned to use in Steamroller. Kaveri (Steamrolelr APU) uses a PD-SoI process node from Global Foundries, Tahiti and Hawaii use a Bulk process from TSMC. We also have no idea how dense the Tahiti die was in the shader processor area, AMD probably found many ways to refine the design which allows for more efficient use of die space and thus packing more things in. We also don't even know if the shader cores themselves are of the exact same design, maybe the cores had some optimizations that made them smaller


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Do you folks think AMD used HDL on Hawaii?


GPUs always use the middle track, which happens to be HDL.

Tahiti 28nm HPL(~30 nm node) -> Hawaii 28nm HPM(~28 nm node)

Both are using HDL.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've been asking around but I thought I'd ask you guys too since this might be relevant.
> 
> Hawaii is 24% larger die with 37% more shaders (as well as other parts greatly increases, but CUs/shaders are the largest part of the die).
> 
> Do you folks think AMD used HDL on Hawaii? Frequencies stayed the same as Tahiti or possibly a little slower. I've seen numbers between 800mhz and 1050mhz.
> 
> I ask because if AMD did use HDL on Hawaii, then we can make safe assumptions in regards to how that would translate to a CPU. Between whatever AMD did with Hawaii and hoping to the next node, AMD could either greatly increase the number of cores on FX OR significantly reduce die size. Either way those would increase AMD CPU profits drastically. Specially if Hawaii used HDL and the hit it took in clockspeed is not as large as Hawaii is showing. I guess we need to see how temps and OC results are as well and maybe some sort of proof HDL was used.


HDL derrived from the gpu ASICs but if they wanted to achieve 20% smaller bus compared to the 7970 while being 512 bit instead of 384.
They will have to have used UHDL


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> GPUs always use the middle track, which happens to be HDL.
> 
> Tahiti 28nm HPL(~30 nm node) -> Hawaii 28nm HPM(~28 nm node)
> 
> Both are using HDL.


Beat me to it


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Ιntel is also focused on low power, nothing new here.


Yes. But on Intel 22nm trigate you can run high frequencies. That is not possible on TSMC 20nm or on GloFO 20nm. As it looks now, neither will high frequencies be possible on GloFo 14XM. This means no CPUs over 3GHz, no PCIe 2+, no HDMI etc etc. Right now it looks like the only process better than TSMC 28nm will be TSMC 16nm finFET sometimes in 2015 (plus delays). I want this to not be the case, but I'm not seeing it :-/

Why is this a problem? Well, AMD desperately needs a better process than TSMC 28nm. HDL etc help them a bit, but it is not a life saver at all. Power consumption and performance will suffer greatly until they get a better process. And last, their profit margins. As have been discussed in the thread, AMD sells large chips for cheap. That really eats into their profits, and really do worry me. I don't want to go back to the bad old days when Intel essentially was the only chip supplier for PC. I want a healthy market, competition to keep the prices nice and low etc. I like to think we all do









I think that an APU on a good 20nm process (like Intel trigate) could have 6-8 cores and a good IGP with he HUMA interface etc, and still not be an impossible large chip with heat issues, yield issues and next to no profit margin. But that seems to be off in 2015 at the earliest. Feels way late.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Competition to keep the prices low? AMD's prices are already low and they are fairly competitive. People like to romanticize about things, but here's a friendly reminder of the prices AMD had when they were putting out chips that blew Intel's away or were otherwise very competitive:



And that's not even mentioning the ORIGINAL FX chips that were targeted at gamers. Sure, they put out great performance, but they were overpriced to hell and back... And look at what Intel has been charging since then as well, while they have the "performance crown", lol. As the market leader, Intel can charge whatever they want, and they have been getting away with it. But it doesn't matter, those $1000 chips aren't exactly a big source of revenue for them. I don't want to see the days of overpriced AMD CPU's return because as an AMD fan, I only buy their CPU's. AMD couldn't price gouge with their chips even if they wanted to, especially not after the Bulldozer fiasco. Their reputation is still damaged from that.

As for APU's with three or four modules, this is technically possible, it's actually possible with 28nm. The die size would be pretty big though. AMD is targeting the 45/65W range for Carrizo, which will be Excavator with HDL and a possible die-shrink down to 20nm. We definitely won't see any APU's with more than two modules because anything more would go beyond their target thermal envelope. FM2+'s target TDP is 95W max. Steamroller FX will probably be the last FX chip, whereas Excavator will be APU-only.


----------



## Papadope

Naroon, I think your right we wont be seeing any 3 module APU's with Kaveri but it's definitely a possibility with Carrizo once HDL is implemented. The thing is with the space saved by implementing HDL they will probably use it to beef up the GPU portion even more instead of adding another module. Also, It's hard to believe Carrizo will have a max TDP of 65W. If it is, AM3+ is not dead and newer FM2+ boards will start supporting DDR4.

The only problem with this scenario is once intel and FM2+ have DDR4 support AM3+ will no longer be competitive. AMD would have to launch AM4 which we know they don't want to do because they want a unified platform. This would leave AMD with no high performance CPU for the gaming and enthusiast market. It's just not going to happen.

Either that max TDP is incorrect or there are going to be 2 platforms. Seronx may be right after all, warsaw might become the new FX.


----------



## Kuivamaa

There is a catch, that freaking leaked die shot from last May.



People already made the hypothesis that it includes some form of SMT in other words, two modules/8 threads.That could be the answer to intel's hyperthreading and finally bring competition to mobile i7 chips. And I suppose same goes for desktop quad i7.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Naroon, I think your right we wont be seeing any 3 module APU's with Kaveri but it's definitely a possibility with Carrizo once HDL is implemented. The thing is with the space saved by implementing HDL they will probably use it to beef up the GPU portion even more instead of adding another module. Also, It's hard to believe Carrizo will have a max TDP of 65W. If it is, AM3+ is not dead and newer FM2+ boards will start supporting DDR4.
> 
> The only problem with this scenario is once intel and FM2+ have DDR4 support AM3+ will no longer be competitive. AMD would have to launch AM4 which we know they don't want to do because they want a unified platform. This would leave AMD with no high performance CPU for the gaming and enthusiast market. It's just not going to happen.
> 
> Either that max TDP is incorrect or there are going to be 2 platforms. Seronx may be right after all, warsaw might become the new FX.


I know the plan is HDL with Excavator actually but what if:
They drop HDL now with steamroller and they drop UHDL with excavator
A man can dream


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> People already made the hypothesis that it includes some form of SMT in other words, two modules/8 threads.That could be the answer to intel's hyperthreading and finally bring competition to mobile i7 chips. And I suppose same goes for desktop quad i7.




Steamroller has all the *Vertical MT*(yellow) to *Single Thread*(green).


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller has all the *Vertical MT*(yellow) to *Single Thread*(green).


If I understand that correctly, then it means 2 integer cores and 1 FP unit which is the same as Piledriver?


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If I understand that correctly, then it means 2 integer cores and 1 FP unit which is the same as Piledriver?


Yeah; the biggest difference between Piledriver and Steamroller is the new decoder. IIRC, Excavator is going to add another FP unit to each module.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If I understand that correctly, then it means 2 integer cores and 1 FP unit which is the same as Piledriver?


that slide is also from 2010 smh


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If I understand that correctly, then it means 2 integer cores and 1 FP unit which is the same as Piledriver?


Two general purpose cores and one shared math accelerator, same as Bulldozer and Piledriver.


----------



## Papadope

I just need to recap because I'm starting to get confused.

Seronx, you believe that die shot is Steamroller but that it does not have SMT, which is AMD's version of hyper-threading? Where does that leave us with Carrizo? 28nm/HDL/and SMT?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Seronx, you believe that die shot is Steamroller but that it does not have SMT, which is AMD's version of hyper-threading?


The die shot is Steamroller from Kaveri. If Kaveri has two modules that means it only has four cores and four threads. It doesn't not make use of SMT in the general purpose cores.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Where does that leave us with Carrizo? 28nm/HDL/and SMT?


Kaveri is on 28-nm uses HDL and doesn't use SMT in the general purpose cores. Carrizo is on 28-nm uses HDL and doesn't use SMT in the general purpose cores. Carrizo's lower TDP could be from process optimizations, a move to FDSOI, or from a more improved resonant clock mesh.


----------



## Papadope

Your saying Steamroller already is Excavator which was supposed to be HDL and memory improvements. The leaked Kaveri benchmarks support the memory improvements but how could they have accelerated the development process that much?

That would be a little crazy but even if that's the case, that still leaves AMD with 2 platforms. Perhaps they want two platforms now because warsaw will not sell enough as a server only product? 2 Module APU's for most users/gamers and warsaw based FX for enthusiast/folders.


----------



## Seronx

2011 -> 2012:
APU: Stars -> Piledriver
CPU: Bulldozer -> Piledriver

2014 -> 2015:
APU: Steamroller -> Excavator
CPU: Piledriver -> Excavator
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Your saying Steamroller already is Excavator which was supposed to be HDL and memory improvements.


I'm saying Steamroller and Enhanced Steamroller(Excavator) were delayed one year from release for improvements.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I'm saying Steamroller and Enhanced Steamroller(Excavator) were delayed one year from release for improvements.


October 12, 2011 - Bulldozer Released
October 23, 2012 - Piledriver Released
Quarter 4 2013 - Kaveri will be Released

I'm hoping for it but It's really not that much of a delay to implement Enhanced Steamroller.

Also, I was thinking maybe with Carrizo AMD will use UHDL on the GPU like they did with the R9 290X. It's a possibility that's one of the ways they will get to 65watts tdp.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> October 12, 2011 - Bulldozer Released
> October 23, 2012 - Piledriver Released
> Quarter 4 2013 - Kaveri will be Released
> 
> I'm hoping for it but It's really not that much of a delay to implement Enhanced Steamroller.


Steamroller is coming out first.

Llano - June 14, 2011
Trinity - May 15, 2012
Richland - March 12, 2013
Kaveri - Q1 2014.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller is coming out first.
> 
> Llano - June 14, 2011
> Trinity - May 15, 2012
> Richland - March 12, 2013
> Kaveri - Q1 2014.


Hmm, I forgot Trinity launched before Vishera. Lets do it like this.
Llano doesn't count because it's Stars Architecture

Based on first appearance of new core architecture
Bulldozer - October 12, 2011
Piledriver - May 15, 2012
Steamroller - December 2013 *Earliest

Bulldozer to Piledriver ~ 7 months
Piledriver to Steamroller (December 2013) ~ 19 months

Makes Enhanced Steamroller totally possible.


----------



## NaroonGTX

"Enhanced Steamroller" is just conjecture at this point, because of that die-shot (supposedly Steamroller v2). This is plausible, and may have been the reason for the delay (Kaveri was originally supposed to come out in Q1 2013).

I also doubt that Kaveri is utilizing HDL -- I think Carrizo will have this instead, which would explain the 45W/65W TDP target being plausible if there won't be a die-shrink to 20nm. A further die-shrink + HDL would make 45W plausible. AMD may opt to keep Carrizo on 28nm which would be even more mature by then, however.


----------



## EniGma1987

Weren't we supposed to see 2 versions of Steamroller cores anyway? First was the new architecture on a SoI process, the next revision was supposed to be the same Steamroller cores on a Bulk process and using HDL. So maybe "Steamroller Enhanced" is just Steamroller V2 on Bulk because it will look a lot different from the SoI process die due to library and process change.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That's the first I've ever heard of that. Whatever the original plans for SR was, some of them have most definitely been re-worked, re-positioned, or scrapped altogether. I know that current Kaveri (whatever and however it is) is on 28nm bulk... Never heard of an SOI version before.


----------



## MrJava

AMD already has *simultaneous multithreading* because more than one thread can be executed simultaneously on a single module. For an extreme example of SMT, look up IBM's POWER8 chip which can execute up to 8 threads per core.

It should of note that with Intel's Hyperthreading the front end (branch prediction, fetch and decode) is "vertically multithreaded" since the front end will only handle one thread at a time and will alternate between threads unless one thread is stalled.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I just need to recap because I'm starting to get confused.
> 
> Seronx, you believe that die shot is Steamroller but that it does not have SMT, which is AMD's version of hyper-threading? Where does that leave us with Carrizo? 28nm/HDL/and SMT?


----------



## Zokula

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD already has *simultaneous multithreading* because more than one thread can be executed simultaneously on a single module. For an extreme example of SMT, look up IBM's POWER8 chip which can execute up to 8 threads per core.


1 thread per core is not what SMT make. A bulldozer/Piledriver module is made of two cores processing 1 thread each, there is no SMT involved.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD already has *simultaneous multithreading* because more than one thread can be executed simultaneously on a single module. For an extreme example of SMT, look up IBM's POWER8 chip which can execute up to 8 threads per core.
> 
> It should of note that with Intel's Hyperthreading the front end (branch prediction, fetch and decode) is "vertically multithreaded" since the front end will only handle one thread at a time and will alternate between threads unless one thread is stalled.


SMT per module is not the same as SMT per core. So at this point i see no advantage of SMT over HT. Now if each core could handle mutiple threads, then AMD would not need more than 4 cores, but that simply reveals the reason we need large core chips.


----------



## EniGma1987

THe architecture AMD designed is a much more advanced form of SMT than what Intel calls Hyper-Threading. There are four ways to do such techniques, Intel's is the cheapest and easiest to implement but also gives the lowest performance boost. AMD's implementation of SMT is very close to two full cores in design which is why the marketing department moved from calling the chips quad cores with octo cores even though that was not the original plan. AMD's way is the most difficult and expensive but also has the capability to give the highest performance boost of any SMT implementation.


----------



## Seronx

The architecture AMD designed is a more advanced form of Chip Multiprocessing and Coarse-grain Multithreading. Intel's Hyperthreading is not cheap or easy to implement while it aims to improve performance from low-ILP applications. AMD's implementation of a kaleidoscope of multithreading techniques is cheaper and easier to implement than direct Chip Multiprocessing.

AMD's Cluster-based Multithreading is the addition of additional units in an unified area while increasing total throughput of that area. While, Intel's Hyperthreading is aimed at improving resource utilization while also increasing total throughput by efficiency.

Intel's Hyperthreading is not pure SMT nor is AMD's Cluster-based Multithreading pure CMP and CGMT.

In Intel's Hyperthreading, only the execution units and memory utilize SMT, while everything else is a variation VMT.

In Bulldozer/Piledriver:
The general purpose cores utilize CMP.
The math accelerator unit is utilizing VMT for the front end, SMT for execution and memory.
The front end for the module is utilizing VMT to feed the cores.

In Steamroller/Excavator:
The general purpose cores utilize CMP.
The math accelerator unit is utilizing SMT for the front end, SMT or CMP for execution and memory.
The front end for the module is utilizing SMT or CMP to feed the cores.

Going from Bulldozer CMT to Steamroller CMT, is the subtraction of VMT, and the addition of SMT.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I still think the main issue with the approach of AMD is that it results in big dies. Intel makes way more chips per wafer. They also sell some i3 models at the same price AMD sell 8320s . This design also limits laptops to dual modules.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've been asking around but I thought I'd ask you guys too since this might be relevant.
> 
> Hawaii is 24% larger die with 37% more shaders (as well as other parts greatly increases, but CUs/shaders are the largest part of the die).
> 
> Do you folks think AMD used HDL on Hawaii? Frequencies stayed the same as Tahiti or possibly a little slower. I've seen numbers between 800mhz and 1050mhz.
> 
> 
> 
> You don't just take libraries from one process type and node and apply them to something completely different. So no they did not use the high density libraries that are planned to use in Steamroller. Kaveri (Steamrolelr APU) uses a PD-SoI process node from Global Foundries, Tahiti and Hawaii use a Bulk process from TSMC. We also have no idea how dense the Tahiti die was in the shader processor area, AMD probably found many ways to refine the design which allows for more efficient use of die space and thus packing more things in. We also don't even know if the shader cores themselves are of the exact same design, maybe the cores had some optimizations that made them smaller
Click to expand...

In the other places I asked about HDL and Hawaii, I was given the answer that Tahiti was not a dense design, mainly because 28nm was new and they wanted better yields. Remember when Tahiti was everywhere and Gk104 was impossible to find? It wasn't entirely because of demand, it was also because AMD could supply more Tahitis because they yielded better because they were less dense.

So it is entirely possible Hawaii is not using HDL at all, but instead is just packed more densely because 28nm is yielding much better.

But what you're getting at is HDL only works on specific nodes at specific fabrication processes?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Competition to keep the prices low? AMD's prices are already low and they are fairly competitive. People like to romanticize about things, but here's a friendly reminder of the prices AMD had when they were putting out chips that blew Intel's away or were otherwise very competitive:
> 
> 
> 
> And that's not even mentioning the ORIGINAL FX chips that were targeted at gamers. Sure, they put out great performance, but they were overpriced to hell and back... And look at what Intel has been charging since then as well, while they have the "performance crown", lol. As the market leader, Intel can charge whatever they want, and they have been getting away with it. But it doesn't matter, those $1000 chips aren't exactly a big source of revenue for them. I don't want to see the days of overpriced AMD CPU's return because as an AMD fan, I only buy their CPU's. AMD couldn't price gouge with their chips even if they wanted to, especially not after the Bulldozer fiasco. Their reputation is still damaged from that.
> 
> As for APU's with three or four modules, this is technically possible, it's actually possible with 28nm. The die size would be pretty big though. AMD is targeting the 45/65W range for Carrizo, which will be Excavator with HDL and a possible die-shrink down to 20nm. We definitely won't see any APU's with more than two modules because anything more would go beyond their target thermal envelope. FM2+'s target TDP is 95W max. Steamroller FX will probably be the last FX chip, whereas Excavator will be APU-only.


Yeah, but you're missing the huge point here, and it's that you could still buy X2 3800 for $350 and then OC it past 4800 levels. Intel has completely killed the concept of this except for the 3930k to SB EE and 4930k to IB EE steps in their product line up.

AMD would more than likely keep their low end chips overclockable, something Intel has completely killed off. Which means that yeah, we might end up paying $350 for an AMD is it comes in and blows the pants off of what we're used to seeing, but you won't be paying for something you can't do yourself.

If you don't believe me, look at FX 8320. There is no way Intel would allow a product like that in their line-up, where it is released at the same time as the higher SKU part and the only difference is stock clocks while both have all the overclocking and instruction-set features enabled.

Back in the day, you could also buy cheaper P4 models and OC them just fine.

I think the point is not so much that AMD will bring prices down across the board, but that they will hopefully save overclocking from Intel's greedy hands. All it would take is an FX 8520 SR/EX chip that would tie Intel in single thread and tie it in single and be fully unlocked at a price point of an Intel that isn't unlocked to slaughter Intel.

To put this entire thing into perspective, Intel already doesn't have an i5 chip that comes in at the price of FX 8320, and 4670k is basically twice as expensive. If AMD was significantly closer in performance with SR/EX and Intel would be in a really odd position where they'd have chips that competed with AMD in price but where unable to be overclocked while the AMDs could see 25%+ increases in clock speed.

That right there would seriously affect the landscape of CPUs right now. Intel would probably have to abandon their scheme of "you can only overclock on unlocked CPUs and those CPUs have features disabled, sometimes as extreme as instructions like TSX which would give massive performance gains."
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I still think the main issue with the approach of AMD is that it results in big dies. Intel makes way more chips per wafer. They also sell some i3 models at the same price AMD sell 8320s . This design also limits laptops to dual modules.


I am in agreement with you, which is why I don't see why AMD would settle for continuing with 315mm^2 4m/8c PD for the next year. Even if they just went for something like PD with HDL they would significantly reduce die size and increase profits.

I feel that PD is simultaneously broken and awesome at the same time. You can set up your PD so it is one module per core and you can see 40% increase in single thread performance. The chip, given its die size, is something really great. The problem is that there are design decisions which are holding it back.

It's been researched and conjectured elsewhere as to why this happens, but even before SR was announced a big theory was that the decoder was a bottleneck and that going one core per module would relieve that bottleneck.

If AMD could fix PD so that it saw the 40% increase in performance it sees when going 4m/4c and it managed to maintain the die size while maintaining that 40% increase in multi-thread, it would have a 315mm^2 die that would compete with Haswell-E and the die sizes would be similar (4930k is about 250mm^2 IIRC). It has potential but a lot of it is clearly wasted.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If AMD could fix PD so that it saw the 40% increase in performance it sees when going 4m/4c and it managed to maintain the die size while maintaining that 40% increase in multi-thread, it would have a 315mm^2 die that would compete with Haswell-E and the die sizes would be similar (4930k is about 250mm^2 IIRC). It has potential but a lot of it is clearly wasted.


You mean a switch like disabling HT on intel processors? That would potentially be awesome, who wouldn't want 4 beefier cores for legacy/poorly threaded stuff and the full PD tech for well threaded stuff?


----------



## MrJava

The way that AMD has decoupled branch prediction, fetch and decode is good enough that they don't need to throw away the old VMT logic for those parts of the pipeline. Beefing up the shared resource is sufficient (bigger L2 BTB (double the size!!!) and larger, more associative i-cache).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Going from Bulldozer CMT to Steamroller CMT, is the subtraction of VMT, and the addition of SMT.


I don't think there's any new work being done on piledriver based chips. That being said, I don't know why warsaw is a 2H 2014 product.

The next big die is Excavator-based, quad-channel DDR4 and onboard PCIe 3.0. It should surface in 2015 for new desktop/server socket(s).


----------



## MrJava

Does that really require a new chip? Should be a simple BIOS option like "CMT Off" that you get with Opterons. Anyway, I think the single threaded boost is more like 15-20%, not 40.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> You mean a switch like disabling HT on intel processors? That would potentially be awesome, who wouldn't want 4 beefier cores for legacy/poorly threaded stuff and the full PD tech for well threaded stuff?


----------



## NaroonGTX

I've never seen a single-threaded boost as big as 40%. Usually what I saw was 5~15%.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I've never seen a single-threaded boost as big as 40%. Usually what I saw was 5~15%.


well since AMD is using 2 cores with shared resources giving that resources to just 1 core would make it a lot faster unless it wasn't starving at all (it is starving)

With Intel you won't see (much) improvements indeed


----------



## NaroonGTX

But the core starvation only applies when both cores in a module are being utilized fully. If only one core in a module is being used, there's no performance penalty there for that task. At least not in theory... I've actually seen performance _regressions_ with the 4M/4C setup in some tests.

AMD did state back when Bulldozer was about to release that the (at the time) current implementation of CMT would grant about 80% the performance of CMP multi-threading. Benchmarks show that that's about the percentage you'd get, which is why 2M/4C Piledriver's sometimes lose in benchmarks against Phenom II x4's. The first core would be putting out ~100% perf and the second would be constrained to 70~80% perf. That's one reason why SR will blow PD away besides the other improvements.


----------



## Seronx

Bulldozer CMT Implementation:

1 Dataset, 1 Thread:
Core 0 -> 100% / Core 1 -> 0%
1 Dataset, 2 Threads:
Core 0 -> 100% / Core 1 -> 100%
2 Datasets, 2 Threads:
Core 0 -> 90% / Core 1 -> 90%

---
The actual performance regression between 00h, 10h, 12h, 14h, 16h to 15h is from the FPU. Mostly, from the lack of pure add and pure mul execution units.

15h:
FMAC -> 5/6 cycles for Adds and Muls

00h-16h:
FADD -> 2/3 cycles for Adds
FMUL -> 3/4 cycles for Muls


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> But what you're getting at is HDL only works on specific nodes at specific fabrication processes?


What Im getting at is that each different foundry company and their process nodes has their own libraries for the design and you cannot use the tools from one company and just go to a different company and say "here ya go"


----------



## Seronx

Tahiti -> 28nm HPL w/ HDL(9-track)
Hawaii -> 28nm HPM w/ HDL(9-track)

Jaguar -> 28nm HP w/ HDL(9-track)
Steamroller Rev A: 28nm HP w/ HSL(11-track)
Steamroller Rev B: 28nm HPM w/ HDL(9-track) or 28nm HPP w/ HDL(9-track).


----------



## Konbad

Was thinking last night, that we could see a new Socket "AM4" or whatever for AMD next year because AMD will need new chipsets to support DDR4 etc. which might require new pin layouts so FM2+ isnt the socket they are going to use for the next little while its a stopgap to allow them to keep selling current APU's while allowing steamroller based parts something to run on. And this new socket next year could debut with FX chips and in q1 2015 the Carrizo APU's will work on it also?

is this also a plausible idea?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> Was thinking last night, that we could see a new Socket "AM4" or whatever for AMD next year because AMD will need new chipsets to support DDR4 etc. which might require new pin layouts so FM2+ isnt the socket they are going to use for the next little while its a stopgap to allow them to keep selling current APU's while allowing steamroller based parts something to run on. And this new socket next year could debut with FX chips and in q1 2015 the Carrizo APU's will work on it also?
> 
> is this also a plausible idea?


Did you mean FM3? Not necessarily, socket AM3+ supportred first the 890 FX chipset then 990FX. FM3 socket will happen, but at what point I am not sure is clear.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Socket AM4 will not happen. Plans for 1090FX were canned long ago, and AMD has gone on record saying that Socket FM2 would be their last socket before they settle on a single unified socket. Whether or not that will be Socket FM2+ or FM3 is to be determined. AMD most likely won't adopt DDR4 until the time that Carrizo is launching, so DDR4 for SR FX is unlikely. If there will be a SR FX, it will be the last chip on Socket AM3+ and the last CPU-only part, as AMD will shift to APU's only with EX most likely.


----------



## Konbad

AM4 was just a name hence the "AM4" it could be called anything i was saying that SR FX might be on a new Socket their unified one with ddr4 etc towards q3 next year then when Carizzo comes out it will also be on this new socket. the main point was basically that New Socket next year for CPU's which will be their main unified socket and that FM2+ was a stopgap with backwards compatibility for the steamroller APU's

i know AMD is wanting APU only but they could use the FX line of CPU's to push the new Socket and get motherboards out there in the market then when their excavator apu's come out they can use this new socket with firmware updates etc


----------



## NaroonGTX

I recall the Newegg TV episode where they talk about Richland's launch. Roy said that they will be sticking with FM2(+) for the future. Reports have also stated that Carrizo will be on FM2+ as a drop-in, so my guess is that even when DDR4 comes, people will be able to buy new FM2+ MOBO's if they want DDR4 support. Carrizo might have a dual-IMC which supports DDR3 or DDR4, similar to what AMD did in the past with DDR2 and DDR3.

The unified socket, if not FM2+, would be FM3, in which case it would come _after_ Excavator. This would mean 2016 and beyond, of which we currently know nothing about, lol.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> AM4 was just a name hence the "AM4" it could be called anything i was saying that SR FX might be on a new Socket their unified one with ddr4 etc towards q3 next year then when Carizzo comes out it will also be on this new socket. the main point was basically that New Socket next year for CPU's which will be their main unified socket and that FM2+ was a stopgap with backwards compatibility for the steamroller APU's
> 
> i know AMD is wanting APU only but they could use the FX line of CPU's to push the new Socket and get motherboards out there in the market then when their excavator apu's come out they can use this new socket with firmware updates etc


You have the wrong concept. FM2+ is the unified socket. Any changes in that socket will be like the difference between AM3 and AM3+


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Did you mean FM3? Not necessarily, socket AM3+ supportred first the 890 FX chipset then 990FX. FM3 socket will happen, but at what point I am not sure is clear.


Oh my.. My M5A88v-EVO was a beast.. should mention that was an AM3+ socket


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You have the wrong concept. FM2+ is the unified socket. Any changes in that socket will be like the difference between AM3 and AM3+


just thinking the change to ddr4 might require some different arrangement inside the socket for pin layout etc if might require a "new" socket i used AM4 just as an example i could have used FM3 also its just a name. i just want Steamroller etc 8 core CPU just so i can upgrade.. i mean 8350 is tempting if my system were to die i would get one but my CPU @ 4.0+ has the same performance so there is no point getting it, but steamroller 8 core that would most likely be faster than my CPU even when i push my OC to its limits which means its a good upgrade


----------



## EniGma1987

DDR4 will probably not require a new socket or pin layout change. AMD has confirmed Carrizo for socket FM2+ and Carrizo is also supposed to be confirmed to have DDR4. Much like AM2+/AM3 boards in the past, you could stick an AM3 processor in the AM2+ socket and use the motherboard's DDR2 slots. The CPU had dual memory controllers capable of running both types and the slot on the MB dictated what memory would be used. A couple motherboards even went with two DDR2 and two DDR3 slots on the same board, but only one type could be used at a time. AM3+ processors however do not have these dual memory controller types, and I dont know if later AM3 processors had two types either, I just know the first gen Phenom's did for backwards compatibility and upgrades to old platforms. The same thing could be done here though with DDR4 support.


----------



## MrJava

Based on recent track-record, AMD will EOL the current socket and change to a new one if necessary for new products. This is a sensible approach IMO.
I also think that AMD will adopt DDR4 (and later PCIe 4.0) as soon as possible given the need for bandwidth to system memory.
Keep in mind that the discrete GPU can also directly access system memory via the CPU's IOMMU, and this requires both memory and PCIe bandwidth.

Its probably too early to conclude that Carrizo will use the FM2+ socket, and no AMD has not "confirmed" anything about that APU.
Carrizo may have quad-channel DDR4, 32 PCIe 3.0 lanes and an integrated southbridge for all we know.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Since there are no talks or even rumors of a new socket out there, I think FM2+ is the last socket we will see for quite some time. I think Carrizo will simply be a drop-in upgrade or allow people to buy new FM2+ boards for DDR4 support if they wanted it. AMD may not have said anything about Carrizo, but they did say FM2 would be the last socket before they settled on a unified one... And if there won't be an AM4, all that's left is FM3, but I doubt they would need to move over to that just for DDR4.


----------



## Papadope

Up until AMD announced FM2+ everybody thought Kaveri would drop in to FM2. FM2+ came out of nowhere and it doesn't even bring a major change like a new memory standard. With the introduction of ddr4 it will be the perfect time to launch a unified platform. Also, If Carrizo will drop in to FM2+, why wouldn't AMD have mentioned it when they announced Carrizo? Having an upgrade path to newer chips is always a selling feature on a socket.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't recall AMD ever officially announcing Carrizo. That codename was leaked from documents. People merely _assumed_ that Kaveri would drop in to FM2, they had no hard evidence it would, just like people _assumed_ that SR FX would exist, let alone drop into AM3+.

Kaveri is introducing official PCIe 3.0 as well as groundwork for hUMA and HSA. Since Excavator/Carrizo will be a mere enhancement of all this, I see no reason for it to require a new socket. Of course, we don't know much about Carrizo besides the overall goal of "increasing performance" and adding more HSA features via system integration (Kaveri is the architectural integration step.)


----------



## MrJava

The following is memory controller IP from ARM that supports DDR3 and DDR4. This means that its possible could have a dual-mode DDR3/DDR4 memory controller even considering the topology differences.
http://www.arm.com/products/system-ip/memory-controllers/corelink-dmc-520.php

Dual-channel DDR4-3200 is 51.2GB/s, so this would be a decent improvement. So FM2+ is not dead yet, but it would be nice to see AMD lead with more memory channels and wider IO.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Since there are no talks or even rumors of a new socket out there, I think FM2+ is the last socket we will see for quite some time. I think Carrizo will simply be a drop-in upgrade or allow people to buy new FM2+ boards for DDR4 support if they wanted it. AMD may not have said anything about Carrizo, but they did say FM2 would be the last socket before they settled on a unified one... And if there won't be an AM4, all that's left is FM3, but I doubt they would need to move over to that just for DDR4.


----------



## Kuivamaa

People didn't just assume AM3+ will get SR out of thin air.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2208525/amd-sticks-with-socket-am3-for-steamroller

It wasn't something _ex culo_.This elusive cpu could be FX-9xx0, it could be a PD refresh (like warsaw) or AMD could surprise us with a steamroller FX. What do I believe? The second.


----------



## MrJava

I think you are just *assuming* that Carrizo will be a mere enhancement of Kaveri.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't recall AMD ever officially announcing Carrizo. That codename was leaked from documents. People merely _assumed_ that Kaveri would drop in to FM2, they had no hard evidence it would, just like people _assumed_ that SR FX would exist, let alone drop into AM3+.
> 
> Kaveri is introducing official PCIe 3.0 as well as groundwork for hUMA and HSA. Since Excavator/Carrizo will be a mere enhancement of all this, I see no reason for it to require a new socket. Of course, we don't know much about Carrizo besides the overall goal of "increasing performance" and adding more HSA features via system integration (Kaveri is the architectural integration step.)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Nowhere in that article does it confirm a SR FX, however. People would have to jump the gun and just assume it would be SR FX. All it says is that users could expect "one more chip" -- it's the article's author who added in "almost certainly one based on Steamroller". Not to mention that article is the only one I've seen that comes close to mentioning a SR FX. AMD never officially confirmed anything about Socket AM3+ getting a SR chip, not even at Hot Chips '12.

As for Carrizo, I'm just being realistic. Carrizo is supposed to be about "increasing performance", which means further tweaking the architecture and increasing efficiency. Besides the expected stuff such as perf/watt gains, efficiency improvements, the biggest new "features" would be the HSA improvements: GPU context switching, graphics pre-emption, hardware resources being able to be prioritized or equalized between users, etc.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Nowhere in that article does it confirm a SR FX, however. People would have to jump the gun and just assume it would be SR FX. All it says is that users could expect "one more chip" -- it's the article's author who added in "almost certainly one based on Steamroller". Not to mention that article is the only one I've seen that comes close to mentioning a SR FX. AMD never officially confirmed anything about Socket AM3+ getting a SR chip, not even at Hot Chips '12.
> 
> As for Carrizo, I'm just being realistic. Carrizo is supposed to be about "increasing performance", which means further tweaking the architecture and increasing efficiency. Besides the expected stuff such as perf/watt gains, efficiency improvements, the biggest new "features" would be the HSA improvements: GPU context switching, graphics pre-emption, hardware resources being able to be prioritized or equalized between users, etc.


I don't see the point of arguing over tea leaves when the facts will be evident when the road map is released in less than a month.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I've been repeatedly saying that the roadmaps are coming next month, but everyone insists on speculating anyway. I can't wait personally -- whether or whether not there will be a completely new chip on AM3+, I won't even care, I'll just be glad the roadmaps confirm it either which way so the speculation and conspiracy theories will stop. I have no interest in AM3+ so it doesn't really matter to me.


----------



## EniGma1987

Speculation and discussion about other upcoming AMD products is what keeps this thread alive and interesting.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I've been repeatedly saying that the roadmaps are coming next month, but everyone insists on speculating anyway. I can't wait personally -- whether or whether not there will be a completely new chip on AM3+, I won't even care, I'll just be glad the roadmaps confirm it either which way so the speculation and conspiracy theories will stop. I have no interest in AM3+ so it doesn't really matter to me.


i would rather see FX on Fm2+ with Pcie3.0 as well


----------



## Kuivamaa

I don't care on what socket it will be,I just want at least 3 modules, personally.


----------



## sdlvx

I had a long post written up a while ago but it got deleted.

Anyways, what I was touching on was that AMD's end game is more than likely a unified platform which supports APU, dCPU, dGPU, with HSA enabled across all devices.

The last few pages here suggesting APU only are forgetting that you are going to be limited in performance compared to dCPU and dGPU at 200w, let alone 125w or even 95w.

Cheaper products sell more, that is how capitalism works. GM sells more Chevy cars than Cadillacs. etc. APU is just a stepping stone to drive up HSA adoption.

AMD will need big dCPU (4m/8c at least) with a big dGPU (like 2048+ cores) to compete with everyone else. HSA will be a waste if it is in a system where HSA Is 5 times faster and everything else is 4 times faster. Reminder: Haswell-E is coming with 6 and 8 core set-ups.

In a year from now, how easy do you think "hey, buy this 2m/4c APU for HSA, it'll be just as fast as Haswell 8 core!" and then in everything else it gets completely destroyed? If you are going out of your way for HSA, you're looking for performance. If AMD goes APU only, you're going to have to sacrifice traditional computing performance for good HSA performance.

I don't see that happening. Not unless Adobe, Autodesk, FOSS world, etc adopt HSA.

If you really think AMD is going to go HSA only, you need to look at the problem HSA is trying to solve (applications need to be significantly faster and there are different parts of a computer that are not being used properly) and ask yourself how a solution which has the end goal of increasing performance will just settle with mid-range (at best) performance.


----------



## NaroonGTX

AMD going APU only doesn't mean they will drop all of their AM3+ chips, however. They have said that they have no intentions on competing with Intel for the CPU speed wars, and they've also said that the AM3+ infrastructure will be around for "years to come". This tells me that whatever the next chip is -- Steamroller-based or Enhanced-Piledriver-based -- AMD will still have chips with >2M designs available to people who want them.

I was never implying that by going APU-only, AMD will literally just abandon everything else and stop selling it. It would be a marketing disaster and the shareholders wouldn't be too pleased either. Going APU only just means that they will focus mainly on APU's and no longer bother with normal CPU's, unless they migrate the FX line over to FM2+ as the unified socket strategy would suggest. Even so, going APU only with Excavator would be well over a year from now, as Carrizo won't hit until c. 2015. HSA will have gotten at least some traction by then. I don't think the company would invest so many years (this has been an initiative since 2006) into this concept if they weren't absolutely sure it would take off for them.

Also someone would have to be daft to compare an APU to a discreet Haswell/Broadwell octocore. This is Intel here, they won't released any octocores for cheap when their current hexacores cost well over $500 already. AMD will maintain their Kaveri APU's for people who want to be HTPC's, budget gaming rigs, or just want better CPU performance per core with the new uarch, and simultaneously maintain their AM3+ platform for people who want those 3 or 4 module-based parts. AMD would never drop their FX dies when they have an upcoming API (Mantle) that will increase CPU performance by removing bottlenecks, as well as most engines that support said API being optimized for eight threads already.

As for me, I would be perfectly fine with a Kaveri quad-core part. For what I do, I don't really need any more cores. I wouldn't mind a three-module SR part, but if it ever comes, I'd just upgrade to that, but I doubt it will exist. Another goal of HSA is offering mega-increased compute performance while also decreasing power consumption. Sure, you drop in an i7-3960x and a 7990, and you're gonna get some nice compute performance, but you're also gonna use lots of power to do so. A lot of companies want low-power designs for these types of things. Not that I keep up with the server side of things, but it seems that's why there is the Berlin APU and why Warsaw will use "enhance PD" cores to improve performance while decreasing power consumption.


----------



## EniGma1987

The way I see it AMD will only do APU's once they begin the HSA integration into everything. This is because they will only need Integer cores and FP units will not be needed at all from then on. That is the point of the integrated GPU with HSA, the GPU is a ton of cores that crunch through single precision and double precision FP work incredibly fast. Most likely this was the reason for the module approach and the sharing of a single FP unit already, it is the first move towards the direction I am talking about and makes the most sense for AMD to be moving towards. Once the integration is complete there will only be integer cores on the CPU side of things. The logic could even be set up in ways that in a program that isnt exactly HSA enabled and optimized that the CPU's FP workload could be routed by the scheduler over to a GPU core for calculation.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD going APU only doesn't mean they will drop all of their AM3+ chips, however. They have said that they have no intentions on competing with Intel for the CPU speed wars, and they've also said that the AM3+ infrastructure will be around for "years to come". This tells me that whatever the next chip is -- Steamroller-based or Enhanced-Piledriver-based -- AMD will still have chips with >2M designs available to people who want them.


I feel Read's interview must be one of the most misquoted of the recent years. What he stated was that mobile is more important and the focus isn't power itself ,as even laptops have plenty as he said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-15/amd-ceo-read-says-flexibility-trumps-speed-in-sales-race

_"AMD will broaden its designs to include other companies' technology, a move that will tailor chips more directly to specific customer needs, he said. The company will also stop trying to take on Intel Corp. (INTC:US) directly in striving to make faster processors, a strategy that's going to produce chips that are needlessly powerful.

"That era is done," Read, 50, said in an interview. "There's enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today""_

What he is saying is the same with the reality intel woke up a few years ago. It is all about power efficiency and mobile devices. Smartphones,tablets,laptops. I, as an enthusiast, disagree.I still feel I could benefit from much faster processors. At the same time, the enthusiast niche is not that relevant any more it seems. Could AMD take it on intel even If they wanted to? Probably not, they are behind in process technology but if their focus was still big core, we would have had a decacore FX steamroller by now but this wouldn't make financial sense. Instead, focus went on little core and mobile able devices like APU, kabini,temash,kaveri etc. Also the "specific customer needs" is crucial, we already see this strategy in full force with console wins.


----------



## MrJava

You're right, AMD's perf/watt is far from competitive right now (even with the cat cores) so this is probably the focus for the company right now. Keep in mind, that moving more functions of the system on-die is a way to reduce system power consumption so its fair to say that new designs will generally be SoCs (as we know them in cellphones/tablets) but not necessarily APUs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I feel Read's interview must be one of the most misquoted of the recent years. What he stated was that mobile is more important and the focus isn't power itself ,as even laptops have plenty as he said.
> 
> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-15/amd-ceo-read-says-flexibility-trumps-speed-in-sales-race
> 
> _"AMD will broaden its designs to include other companies' technology, a move that will tailor chips more directly to specific customer needs, he said. The company will also stop trying to take on Intel Corp. (INTC:US) directly in striving to make faster processors, a strategy that's going to produce chips that are needlessly powerful.
> 
> "That era is done," Read, 50, said in an interview. "There's enough processing power on every laptop on the planet today""_
> 
> What he is saying is the same with the reality intel woke up a few years ago. It is all about power efficiency and mobile devices. Smartphones,tablets,laptops. I, as an enthusiast, disagree.I still feel I could benefit from much faster processors. At the same time, the enthusiast niche is not that relevant any more it seems. Could AMD take it on intel even If they wanted to? Probably not, they are behind in process technology but if their focus was still big core, we would have had a decacore FX steamroller by now but this wouldn't make financial sense. Instead, focus went on little core and mobile able devices like APU, kabini,temash,kaveri etc. Also the "specific customer needs" is crucial, we already see this strategy in full force with console wins.


----------



## MrJava

Has anyone here heard of Wide I/O DRAM. Its stacked DRAM (using TSV micro-bump) with 4 128-bit channels. The current standard is 200MHz SDR for about 12.8GB/s, but one of the proposed standards for Wide I/O 2 allows for up to 136GB/s. Power consumption is also greatly reduced.

I think AMD might go this route (for mobile at least) considering that it Samsung will be producing the DRAM for its SoC's next year. I believe Nvidia will also be using this type of memory for Volta.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD going APU only doesn't mean they will drop all of their AM3+ chips, however. They have said that they have no intentions on competing with Intel for the CPU speed wars, and they've also said that the AM3+ infrastructure will be around for "years to come". This tells me that whatever the next chip is -- Steamroller-based or Enhanced-Piledriver-based -- AMD will still have chips with >2M designs available to people who want them.
> 
> I was never implying that by going APU-only, AMD will literally just abandon everything else and stop selling it. It would be a marketing disaster and the shareholders wouldn't be too pleased either. Going APU only just means that they will focus mainly on APU's and no longer bother with normal CPU's, unless they migrate the FX line over to FM2+ as the unified socket strategy would suggest. Even so, going APU only with Excavator would be well over a year from now, as Carrizo won't hit until c. 2015. HSA will have gotten at least some traction by then. I don't think the company would invest so many years (this has been an initiative since 2006) into this concept if they weren't absolutely sure it would take off for them.
> 
> Also someone would have to be daft to compare an APU to a discreet Haswell/Broadwell octocore. This is Intel here, they won't released any octocores for cheap when their current hexacores cost well over $500 already. AMD will maintain their Kaveri APU's for people who want to be HTPC's, budget gaming rigs, or just want better CPU performance per core with the new uarch, and simultaneously maintain their AM3+ platform for people who want those 3 or 4 module-based parts. AMD would never drop their FX dies when they have an upcoming API (Mantle) that will increase CPU performance by removing bottlenecks, as well as most engines that support said API being optimized for eight threads already.
> 
> As for me, I would be perfectly fine with a Kaveri quad-core part. For what I do, I don't really need any more cores. I wouldn't mind a three-module SR part, but if it ever comes, I'd just upgrade to that, but I doubt it will exist. Another goal of HSA is offering mega-increased compute performance while also decreasing power consumption. Sure, you drop in an i7-3960x and a 7990, and you're gonna get some nice compute performance, but you're also gonna use lots of power to do so. A lot of companies want low-power designs for these types of things. Not that I keep up with the server side of things, but it seems that's why there is the Berlin APU and why Warsaw will use "enhance PD" cores to improve performance while decreasing power consumption.


Intel is not competing on speed anymore either. I think people keep forgetting this. Competing with Intel now would be a competition of trying to make a single core that scales from ultrabooks to 8 core dies. Broadwell is more than likely going to be a 5% IPC increase, with a hit to high end clocks and overclocking headroom, with the Intel cheerleaders going "OMG INTEL DID IT AGAIN, SAME PERFORMANCE LESS POWER CONSUMPTION!"

If anything, I'd say that even if AMD were to try and best Intel's greatest processors out there in raw performance, that it still would be competing more with the Temash range of chips with Intel. Intel stopped making design decisions that benefit performance with IB and that's not going to change ever. The focus has been power consumption, ergo why you see the new Haswell Macs talking about battery life and not performance increases.


----------



## Castaa

It's pretty clear to me that AMD is going hard after the OEM market. Steamroller is the first clear sign of this shift. Its move to ARM is also another sign.

Sacrificing multithreaded CPU performance for low end GPU performance isn't what I want. HSA for gaming is a pipe dream since consoles will still drive development for the next 5 to 10 years. As a user who builds desktop boxes for gaming, Vishera will likely be the last AMD CPU I ever buy, if I even buy that.


----------



## NaroonGTX

In reality the CPU speed wars ended a long time ago. I'm not sure why people like to pretend otherwise. You hit the nail on the head mentioning how Intel has been focusing on power consumption/efficiency for quite some time. It's not as if the IPC even needs to increase in strides anymore, at least not for Intel. Their uarch is hitting a wall on that front anyway, which is another contributor to the marginal performances increases in recent times. It's like people who kept trying to suggest "Phenom III", which would've been horrible in reality. That uarch truly hit the end of its lifespan. There could only have been so many K7 derivatives before that design topped out. That's one of the main reasons why Llano had a pathetic max OC (3.6ghz typically) despite having a 6~7% perf increase clock for clock over PII.

The biggest thing about Broadwell would be 'zomg another die shrink!!'. People can get excited for more hexa and octocores if they want, but they can also get their wallets ready. Outside of the small niche of "enthusiasts" and gamers who enjoy being gipped by price gouging.

I think what AMD is doing right now is the best they can do for themselves.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Castaa*
> 
> Sacrificing multithreaded CPU performance for low end GPU performance isn't what I want. HSA for gaming is a pipe dream since consoles will still drive development for the next 5 to 10 years. As a user who builds desktop boxes for gaming, Vishera will likely be the last AMD CPU I ever buy, if I even buy that.


HSA for gaming isn't necessarily a pipe dream; development is driven by consoles, but both the XB1 and PS4 are running AMD APUs, and will both likely be using HSA themselves (the PS4 certainly will, the Xbox is very likely). Ports might not support HSA at the consoles' launch, but they very well might a year or two down the road, when HSA is fully integrated on desktop platforms with Carrizo.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yep, Sony even joined the HSA alliance in early 2013. Don't know if the X1 will use it, but the PS4 certainly will. There's nothing stopping programmers from using the iGPU of an APU for things like physics calculations and weather simulation, which would take the load off the dGPU and keep framerates higher.


----------



## Konbad

well PhysX on the PC probably not , but maybe nvidia will allow it like they did with the consoles


----------



## NaroonGTX

Physx wouldn't be necessary, especially since it's proprietary due to being coded for CUDA cores, so AMD couldn't benefit from that. The engine itself could be coded to allow for physics processing to be allotted to any GPU, thus Kaveri's iGPU could come into play while using a dGPU. This is assuming it would be possible for Kaveri's iGPU to be used while using a dGPU as the main graphics.

I think Physx on consoles isn't the GPU-accelerated variant, but something else. Like I don't think Borderlands 2 on consoles had the jelly-liquids and extra sparklies.


----------



## Konbad

i cant remember but i think i saw that nvidia allowed GPU processing of physX on the AMD GPu's on the Consoles but only for the consoles , i mean if nvidia were smart they would allow the physics part of physX to run on AMD Gpu's because then it would be used ALOT more they could keep their apex particles and special effects like they do now, 90% of games i see run the physics part off the CPU and when you enable GPU physics all you get is the Apex particles etc etc.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> especially since it's proprietary due to being coded for CUDA cores.


Its really not. PhysX started from a company called Ageia. It was coded by them and for their hardware, which also wasnt really anything special. Nvidia bought Ageia and uses CUDA cores to run the PhysX code. It hasnt been done recently, but PhysX drivers used to be able to be modded to run full hardware PhysX on AMD cards too. Nvidia doesnt allow anyone else to use PhysX when another card is installed besides Nvidia because they simply throw some checks in to look for other cards and then disable PhysX, it has nothing to do with actual compatibility.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> i cant remember but i think i saw that nvidia allowed GPU processing of physX on the AMD GPu's on the Consoles but only for the consoles , i mean if nvidia were smart they would allow the physics part of physX to run on AMD Gpu's because then it would be used ALOT more they could keep their apex particles and special effects like they do now, 90% of games i see run the physics part off the CPU and when you enable GPU physics all you get is the Apex particles etc etc.


The console's version of PhysX is just the basic CPU version, I believe; it might have better optimizations or multithreading, but it's not the GPU version.

PhysX can be used on AMD GPUs, but it would need to be added to the drivers, which would mean that AMD would have to license it from nVidia - and considering the way nVidia tends to treat their licensees, I don't think anyone can blame AMD for declining that.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I already knew about the history of Physx itself. It failed back when Ageia was selling their overpriced PPU's and it's pretty much a failure now because hardly anyone uses it.

I was under the impression that modern Physx was coded specifically for use with Nvidia's CUDA cores, and would perform slowly on AMD's cards since they are obviously of a different architecture. The method people used back in the day was "Hybrid Physx" where people used an AMD GPU as their main GPU, and had some type of Nvidia GPU acting specifically as the Physx card. I recall it originally being supported, then Nvidia locked it out and people used modded drivers until somehow that stopped working as well.

Either way, I'm glad Physx never really took off. It's really unimpressive in most cases anyway. I used to use Nvidia GPU's and the only things that impressed me were the cloth physics. The liquids were always unnatural-looking despite being hyped up. I see awesome physics in tons of games that don't even use Physx, so I see no need for it.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Either way, I'm glad Physx never really took off. It's really unimpressive in most cases anyway. I used to use Nvidia GPU's and the only things that impressed me were the cloth physics. The liquids were always unnatural-looking despite being hyped up. I see awesome physics in tons of games that don't even use Physx, so I see no need for it.


PhysX has a lot of potential, but I suspect developers don't want to put much effort into it because it's rather exclusive. Instead, they just throw a couple simple effects in, so they can say they use it, and get development help from nV in the form of coders and money.

I really wish people would use the GPU accelerated versions of Bullet or Havok, as those aren't exclusive and could really improve the quality of physics in games, but no one seems to want to. Havok, I guess I can see, due to licensing fees; but Bullet is free...


----------



## Papadope

I don't think Nvidia would have to license PhysX or get driver support from AMD. Since PS4 supports HSA, they could just compile their CPU Physx variant to utilize HSA. That's the main point of HSA after all, easily compile C++ code that will run on the GPU if the task is parallel.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I don't think Nvidia would have to license PhysX or get driver support from AMD. Since PS4 supports HSA, they could just compile their CPU Physx variant to utilize HSA. That's the main point of HSA after all, easily compile C++ code that will run on the GPU if the task is parallel.


The CPU version of PhysX is rather basic though, isn't it? Also, HSA requires parallel code, and CPU PhysX is far from that, hence why it runs so terribly.

Besides, for AMD, Sony, or the devs to recompile PhysX, they'd need to license it, if I'm not mistaken.


----------



## NaroonGTX

PhysX 3.0 allows better CPU multi-threaded scaling. You could see this in Borderlands 2. Even on AMD cards you can turn PhysX on and even put it on High, but it's not as smooth as using an Nvidia GPU since it's just the CPU doing all the work.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> PhysX 3.0 allows better CPU multi-threaded scaling. You could see this in Borderlands 2. Even on AMD cards you can turn PhysX on and even put it on High, but it's not as smooth as using an Nvidia GPU since it's just the CPU doing all the work.


Ah, I didn't know that. In that case, I suppose an HSA PhysX implementation may be available on the PS4. Interesting.

Still, they would have to license it from nVidia to compile an HSA version, wouldn't they? I wonder if they have, or if not, if they will at some point.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I too would like to know how PhysX on consoles works. I know the PS3's RSX GPU was basically a customized GeForce 7800GT, but those didn't have CUDA cores on them. I don't know if they had to license it or not. I wonder if Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo ever had to pay anything, or if it was up to the publishers/developers since its tied in with the game engine. I don't think the console versions of Borderlands 2 had the PhysX effects in them from the PC version, though. The PhysX on consoles must've been some really light CPU-based stuff instead, in whatever games had it. I know I saw the PhysX splash screen appear on some of the PS3 games I've played over the years.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I too would like to know how PhysX on consoles works. I know the PS3's RSX GPU was basically a customized GeForce 7800GT, but those didn't have CUDA cores on them. I don't know if they had to license it or not. I wonder if Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo ever had to pay anything, or if it was up to the publishers/developers since its tied in with the game engine. I don't think the console versions of Borderlands 2 had the PhysX effects in them from the PC version, though. The PhysX on consoles must've been some really light CPU-based stuff instead, in whatever games had it. I know I saw the PhysX splash screen appear on some of the PS3 games I've played over the years.


Well, PhysX can handle basic game physics (player collision detection, projectile physics, etc) like any other physics engine, and that's probably what those games used; any advanced physics effects were more likely custom engines running on the Cell, or just pre-simulated animations.


----------



## MrJava

I read an interesting thought on another forum about AMD being the Mediatek of the X86 world. By selling competitive enough products at competitive prices, they can maintain and again marketshare and mindshare. No need for any performance crowns, just deliver a product that 90% of the market would appreciate i.e. good/acceptable performance and long battery life.


----------



## Konbad

if AMD were to gain their 30% and sell an 8 core CPU @ 210-220 dollars it would fly off the shelves i know i would be buying 2.


----------



## NaroonGTX

@MrJava: Yeah that's generally how AMD have been since they entered the CPU world. They've always been the cheaper, acceptable alternative. Aside from that golden period (*cough*A64*cough*) where they could charge similar prices to Intel and have it make sense. I'm a self-proclaimed AMD fan (not fanboy) since I've been using their chips for ages and have never been let down with the products I've used. I've used Intel chips before and they were great and got the job done.

In terms of the "performance crown", I actually think AMD may catch up and even surpass Intel. Intel's uarch is reaching it's limit, which is the actual reason the perf improvements are so minimal with each new release. Bulldozer is a totally fresh uarch and has a ton of room for improvement. I think when EX gets here, people will see this. Intel may have a ridiculous amount of R&D budget to throw around, but they won't be able to realistically boost perf 20% above AMD when they catch up.


----------



## btupsx

Call me crazy, but I get the completely unsubstantiated vibe that SR "FX", or whatever nomenclature it uses, will arrive late Q2 or early Q3 2014. As has been stated before, lately the APU's get the new arch revisions first. Only troubling thing is that the PD refresh found in Richland hasn't made it to the FX lineup yet, while Warsaw incorporates this exact refresh. I wouldn't understand introducing a PD refresh on FX at this late point in the game, but that IS what they did on the APU side, so we'll have to see what comes about in 3-4 weeks


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *btupsx*
> 
> Call me crazy, but I get the completely unsubstantiated vibe that SR "FX", or whatever nomenclature it uses, will arrive late Q2 or early Q3 2014. As has been stated before, lately the APU's get the new arch revisions first. Only troubling thing is that the PD refresh found in Richland hasn't made it to the FX lineup yet, while Warsaw incorporates this exact refresh. I wouldn't understand introducing a PD refresh on FX at this late point in the game, but that IS what they did on the APU side, so we'll have to see what comes about in 3-4 weeks


just speculation... and to think about... couldn't the 9570 be the refresh?


----------



## NaroonGTX

I thought the 9000 series were refreshes as well. They didn't have the "enhanced" PD cores in them, but yeah. We'll find out soon enough, though.


----------



## Kuivamaa

FX-9xxx seems to be the same stepping (0R-C0) with normal FX-83xx. FX "warsaw" ,if it ever exists it will be due to their opteron brethren. Why AMD opt to make those instead of SR? No idea, might have something to do with GloFo unable to meet 28nm yields or something related.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> FX-9xxx seems to be the same stepping (0R-C0) with normal FX-83xx. FX "warsaw" ,if it ever exists it will be due to their opteron brethren. Why AMD opt to make those instead of SR? No idea, might have something to do with GloFo unable to meet 28nm yields or something related.


Been looking at old rumors from 2012. It seems like there are two versions of Steamroller, and the first one was cancelled, hence they delay and hence why no traditional October CPU release from AMD.

My guess is bdver3a was not good enough or met the wrong goals, so AMD just abandoned it and decided to focus on APUs. Meanwhile, working on bdver3b which would be a much larger performance upgrade from PD.

Also, I hate to pick hairs, but whenever AMD says they are focusing on APUs, they do not say for how long they will do it. For 2013? For 2014? For the rest of the company's life?

Also, of not, the Q3 earnings report said that A10 and FX series was growing quite well in sales. It is still a good market for AMD and I expect them to capitalize on their gaming wins.

Read brought the company to profitability with A10, FX, and Temash/Kabini. He is going to take this and capitalize on it.

I think the end game would be AMD to have "the gaming platform" while all the Intel kids run around talking about how Broadwell uses less power.


----------



## MrJava

Probably a few factors:
- 32nm yields are really good now and SOI is SOI
- that 20% perf/watt is mostly from better turbo and power management (more sensors, better microcontroller and firmware i.e. relatively simple change)
- physical design improvements to clock higher/lower power?
- easy upgrade for existing customers and Open Compute boards

For the last point, they may even be doing this specifically for Facebook if there is a potential for a large order. Why is going to take till 2H 2014 to deliver this? I don't know.

All I know is that the next big server chip from AMD is going to improve much more than the cores themselves. This might include:
- ondie PCIe 3.0
- new IOMMU(s)
- new L3 cache design (inclusive?)
- onboard network and storage accelerators

Your patience will be rewarded.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> FX-9xxx seems to be the same stepping (0R-C0) with normal FX-83xx. FX "warsaw" ,if it ever exists it will be due to their opteron brethren. Why AMD opt to make those instead of SR? No idea, might have something to do with GloFo unable to meet 28nm yields or something related.


----------



## NaroonGTX

>>Also, I hate to pick hairs, but whenever AMD says they are focusing on APUs, they do not say for how long they will do it. For 2013? For 2014? For the rest of the company's life?

I think them focusing on APU's just means that APU's will be the priority. This could last for a long time, and it may get to the point that there is no "CPU-only" part in the future. We'll see APU's with more modules at some point, but it will be a ways off.


----------



## Konbad

just spent the last 5 hours watching Linuses Conference Stream, Way to throw a curveball


----------



## NaroonGTX

What were the highlights?


----------



## MrJava

Of course there will be a CPU with as many hardware threads as possible for servers/HPC. Why is this even a question? I just don't think AMD is rushing to a stop-gap solution.

As for consumers, 2 modules is completely fine if they beef up the FPU a little. They may also rebalance the caches to 1MB of L2 and 2MB of L3 per core so that you can have 4 cores, 6MB of cache and a decent GPU in one sweet package.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I question if the L3 cache is even necessary. I've seen many benches where APU PD and FX PD were about neck & neck clock for clock (such as in PCSX2 which is super-CPU heavy) where the L3 made no difference. This is in stark contrast to something like Athlon II and Phenom II where Phenom II would pull ahead at the same clocks pretty often. If bdver3b truly does have improved cache latencies (contrary to reports from 2012) then the L3 probably wouldn't be needed as long as they had a nicely sized L2 cache.


----------



## Dynamo11

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Also, I hate to pick hairs, but whenever AMD says they are focusing on APUs, they do not say for how long they will do it. For 2013? For 2014? For the rest of the company's life?


Well I assumed the idea was AMD's hoping for HSA to become the standard and as such would utilise APUs much more efficiently than non-IGP CPUs. So potentially AMD will be going completely APU (on the consumer front of course, I have no idea about the server market and indeed no experience of the latter)


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Dynamo11*
> 
> Well I assumed the idea was AMD's hoping for HSA to become the standard and as such would utilise APUs much more efficiently than non-IGP CPUs. So potentially AMD will be going completely APU (on the consumer front of course, I have no idea about the server market and indeed no experience of the latter)


AMD plans to replace the current server lineup with APUs as well, if I recall the roadmap correctly.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> AMD plans to replace the current server lineup with APUs as well, if I recall the roadmap correctly.


which if utilized correctly is not a bad idea.. but dependant on hsa to acheieve this.. is strange that everyone is worried about apus when intel has technically been doing that for a wile.. its going to come to blows.. is a strong cpu core better than stronger igpu.. the difference will be how the coding evolves


----------



## MrJava

Well BD/PD and steamroller all have write-through L1 data caches, this means that every store to the L1 cache must also be written to L2 cache effectively making the L1 store latency the same as L2 hit. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but there is a huge difference between 4 cycle L1 hit and 20 cycle L2 hit and the L1 write bandwidth is terrible because of it. Of course they have various buffers and a write coalescing cache to try to disguise the latency somewhat and reduce the average latency over a bunch of stores. In contrast intel and K10 will only encounter L2 latency for writes if a cache line has to be evicted.

IBM's POWER also has a write-through L1 data cache, but its only 256KB per core with 8 cycle latency. AMD had 2MB L2 caches on Llano with 12 cycle latency so I know AMD has the tech and experience to do what I'm suggesting. They might also use a low latency 4MB L3 cache which is inclusive so that the L2 caches will not have to handle as much snoop traffic.

Steamroller slides said nothing about L2 hit latency going down explicitly. However, I think the "faster handling of L1 data cache misses" will indirectly make the L2 hit latency a little lower.

Overall, the current memory subsystem in the bulldozer family is pretty weak, and I think improving it will have a much bigger effect on performance than just throwing more execution units in the core.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I question if the L3 cache is even necessary. I've seen many benches where APU PD and FX PD were about neck & neck clock for clock (such as in PCSX2 which is super-CPU heavy) where the L3 made no difference. This is in stark contrast to something like Athlon II and Phenom II where Phenom II would pull ahead at the same clocks pretty often. If bdver3b truly does have improved cache latencies (contrary to reports from 2012) then the L3 probably wouldn't be needed as long as they had a nicely sized L2 cache.


----------



## MrJava

Actually that profit was due to console chip sales. Read expects AMD to derive 50% of its profits from embedded and semi-custom business units in the coming years. They're probably also counting on selling more seamicro systems which can contain CPUs (x86 or ARM) and APUs (x86 or ARM) depending on customer preference. Verizon was a big win for AMD and it looks to be the tip of the iceberg.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Been looking at old rumors from 2012. It seems like there are two versions of Steamroller, and the first one was cancelled, hence they delay and hence why no traditional October CPU release from AMD.
> 
> My guess is bdver3a was not good enough or met the wrong goals, so AMD just abandoned it and decided to focus on APUs. Meanwhile, working on bdver3b which would be a much larger performance upgrade from PD.
> 
> Also, I hate to pick hairs, but whenever AMD says they are focusing on APUs, they do not say for how long they will do it. For 2013? For 2014? For the rest of the company's life?
> 
> Also, of not, the Q3 earnings report said that A10 and FX series was growing quite well in sales. It is still a good market for AMD and I expect them to capitalize on their gaming wins.
> 
> Read brought the company to profitability with A10, FX, and Temash/Kabini. He is going to take this and capitalize on it.
> 
> I think the end game would be AMD to have "the gaming platform" while all the Intel kids run around talking about how Broadwell uses less power.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Actually that profit was due to console chip sales. Read expects AMD to derive 50% of its profits from embedded and semi-custom business units in the coming years. They're probably also counting on selling more seamicro systems which can contain CPUs (x86 or ARM) and APUs (x86 or ARM) depending on customer preference. Verizon was a big win for AMD and it looks to be the tip of the iceberg.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Been looking at old rumors from 2012. It seems like there are two versions of Steamroller, and the first one was cancelled, hence they delay and hence why no traditional October CPU release from AMD.
> 
> My guess is bdver3a was not good enough or met the wrong goals, so AMD just abandoned it and decided to focus on APUs. Meanwhile, working on bdver3b which would be a much larger performance upgrade from PD.
> 
> Also, I hate to pick hairs, but whenever AMD says they are focusing on APUs, they do not say for how long they will do it. For 2013? For 2014? For the rest of the company's life?
> 
> Also, of not, the Q3 earnings report said that A10 and FX series was growing quite well in sales. It is still a good market for AMD and I expect them to capitalize on their gaming wins.
> 
> Read brought the company to profitability with A10, FX, and Temash/Kabini. He is going to take this and capitalize on it.
> 
> I think the end game would be AMD to have "the gaming platform" while all the Intel kids run around talking about how Broadwell uses less power.
Click to expand...

Is my memory playing tricks on me or did someone mention at some point that AMD's plan was to elevate other products with profits from other products?

Perhaps AMD is just diversifying their product lineup so that if they do release a dud product that it doesn't obliterate their profits. I mean, look at what Bulldozer did, it took them years to fix it. If they had a mix of APUs, CPUs, and GPUs, if they have a bad generation of one of those, they won't be completely hosed.

I don't know. But reading back at old rumours makes me feel as though a lot of speculation and conjecture of what AMD is doing has somehow ended up being perceived as true facts.

I do think that without a doubt, the entire plan of releasing one big core CPU which will then trickle down from servers to desktop and relying on that being the main profit maker is gone forever.

I really wish AMD would just level with us, but I don't think they want to come out and tell us that:

1. Steamroller has been delayed a year
2. We're not going to completely focus on gaming CPUs to power high end setups like 3 290xs when we're making such a noise about PC gaming
3. We've been running around going "MOAR COARS" and our next design won't be more cores, but more IPC with the same number of cores
4. We're going to give "mainstream" sockets (which happen to be APUs) all the cool stuff first (new architectures, HSA, etc)
4a. This is exactly what Intel does with LGA2011 and mainstream sockets ergo IB-E showing up much later than regular IB


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Is my memory playing tricks on me or did someone mention at some point that AMD's plan was to elevate other products with profits from other products?
> 
> Perhaps AMD is just diversifying their product lineup so that if they do release a dud product that it doesn't obliterate their profits. I mean, look at what Bulldozer did, it took them years to fix it. If they had a mix of APUs, CPUs, and GPUs, if they have a bad generation of one of those, they won't be completely hosed.
> 
> I don't know. But reading back at old rumours makes me feel as though a lot of speculation and conjecture of what AMD is doing has somehow ended up being perceived as true facts.
> 
> I do think that without a doubt, the entire plan of releasing one big core CPU which will then trickle down from servers to desktop and relying on that being the main profit maker is gone forever.
> 
> I really wish AMD would just level with us, but I don't think they want to come out and tell us that:
> 
> 1. Steamroller has been delayed a year
> 2. We're not going to completely focus on gaming CPUs to power high end setups like 3 290xs when we're making such a noise about PC gaming
> 3. We've been running around going "MOAR COARS" and our next design won't be more cores, but more IPC with the same number of cores
> 4. We're going to give "mainstream" sockets (which happen to be APUs) all the cool stuff first (new architectures, HSA, etc)
> 4a. This is exactly what Intel does with LGA2011 and mainstream sockets ergo IB-E showing up much later than regular IB


1.. steamroller has not been delayed a year.. infact looking at roadmaps its almost on time

2..maybe not in the sense that you are looking at... they currently have the fx line for that type of set up asthe apus mature.

3..pretty sure integration of gpu is more cores... not in the sense you are looking at it.. regardless more coars still applies to fx which fx steamroller has not been denied

4 amd is working on a unified socket as their product line will be all apu using the same socket... am3+ will end aftersteamroller.

4a amd is not doing the exact same thing as intel does

Tostart out saying everyone is taking things as fact you sure did tame a lot of heresay with no eevidenceas fact... go home your drunk

ssorryfor the typeos hard to type on my phone


----------



## NaroonGTX

What the above poster said. People need to stop worrying about the future of SR. All AMD ever officially stated about SR was when they mentioned it in 2011 by letting us know that after Bulldozer, would come PD, SR, and EX. Then they told us a bunch of stuff about the architecture at Hot Chips 2012, which was great info but they never mentioned what products it would go into. One of the slides did talk about Steamroller making its way into an Opteron form, but as we know right now technically there will be Berlin, though I don't know if that counts as an Opteron? Needless to say, if there truly is a bdver3b, then that would explain any "delay". Aside from that, Kaveri has generally been listed in the same place on the roadmap as it was almost since the beginning.

We will learn about the future of AM3+ when the new roadmaps release. It's not that hard to wait. We've waited this long, a few more weeks isn't that killer. APU '13 will be in a few weeks running from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13th in San Diego. They will discuss Mantle, more partners who will be using that tech, talk about Radeon some, and undoubtedly mention Kaveri and other APU's.

As for 'mainstream socket' and whatnot, as has been said AMD will focus on their unified socket ideology. AM3+ only still exists because of pre-existing FX chips. If it will actually get another chip, that chip will be the last on that platform and there won't be any AM4. People who want moar coarz will make due with FX. Mantle will reduce many overheads, including causes for CPU bottlenecks, and many new games are already having good multi-threaded support. EA/DICE's Frostbite 3 engine for example will power a lot of upcoming AAA games and it can scale to eight cores. These games will run just fine on four cores, so people who decide to buy an APU won't be bottlenecked or anything.


----------



## Konbad

Mantle is col just like HSA but until its got market saturation its not really a thing. i mean i would have prefered AMD sink all that Mantle Money into OpenGL instead and got all these developers to port their games to openGL from D3D and have their games on Linux and Mac just to shake up things even more


----------



## NaroonGTX

From what I heard Mantle will work on Linux too, so if that's true, it means more AAA games on Linux. I also recall hearing that AMD has been making strides in their Linux driver development too. If all this is true, AMD will be selling a lot more GCN cards, lol.


----------



## MrJava

On the topic of sockets, its amazing how AMD was able to get dual-channel DDR3, 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes and display interfaces onto a socket with less pins than AM3+. Not to mention intel needs 1150 pins for more or less the same connectivity; what are all those extra pins used for?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Maybe FM2(+) has less pins since the NB was integrated onto the die? No idea why Intel requires those extra pins.


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> From what I heard Mantle will work on Linux too, so if that's true, it means more AAA games on Linux. I also recall hearing that AMD has been making strides in their Linux driver development too. If all this is true, AMD will be selling a lot more GCN cards, lol.


Uhh I doubt they will be selling a significant number of cards to people using Linux. I mean, the market of people who care about building computers isn't big when compared to those who buy computers straight up. And the number of those who use Linux primarily to game is even smaller. It may not seem like it on this site but the number of us who go into Microcenter to drool over new processors isn't large in the grand scheme of computer sales.


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> 1.. steamroller has not been delayed a year.. infact looking at roadmaps its almost on time


What roadmap? Are you holding out on us F3er?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Deadboy90*
> 
> Uhh I doubt they will be selling a significant number of cards to people using Linux. I mean, the market of people who care about building computers isn't big when compared to those who buy computers straight up. And the number of those who use Linux primarily to game is even smaller. It may not seem like it on this site but the number of us who go into Microcenter to drool over new processors isn't large in the grand scheme of computer sales.


true but linux gaming is an emerging market especially with steam starting the boost in the trend


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> true but linux gaming is an emerging market especially with steam starting the boost in the trend


It's going to matter how fast it emerges. As of now Steam only has like 100 games set to go for Linux vs. god knows how many for windows. And most people will continue to use windows because its familiar, especially the "my mom bought me a 'puter" types.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> On the topic of sockets, its amazing how AMD was able to get dual-channel DDR3, 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes and display interfaces onto a socket with less pins than AM3+. Not to mention intel needs 1150 pins for more or less the same connectivity; what are all those extra pins used for?


Who says the pins are even all used? Just cause a socket is designed with a certain pin count it doesn't really mean anything. Just cause DDR has 240 pins doesnt necessarily mean you need 480 pins just for the RAM connections on the CPU

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Deadboy90*
> 
> What roadmap? Are you holding out on us F3er?


Roadmaps from last year or two, showing Steamroller was supposed to be released the first half of 2014 or maybe the very end of 2013.


----------



## NaroonGTX

>>Uhh I doubt they will be selling a significant number of cards to people using Linux. I mean, the market of people who care about building computers isn't big when compared to those who buy computers straight up. And the number of those who use Linux primarily to game is even smaller. It may not seem like it on this site but the number of us who go into Microcenter to drool over new processors isn't large in the grand scheme of computer sales.

Not sure why you made this reply to me. I said IF all this pans out (Mantle bringing more games to Linux, AMD fixing their Linux drivers, etc.) then they could build up their rep and sell more cards. I'm well aware of everything you said in your post, so no need to get on a soapbox to me. Enthusiasts make up a very small portion of overall sales for all companies (AMD, Nvidia, Intel, etc.) and I'm pretty sure I've said that numerous times in this very thread.

That said, I know many people (lots of them who dual-boot and enjoy using emu's on Linux and such) who would switch to Linux 100% if AMD had better drivers. Just because Linux users don't make up a majority of the market doesn't mean they should negate working on their craptastic Linux drivers.

edit - Old roadmaps


From Jan. 2013


Latest desktop


Old slide from 2012 talking about future of Opteron parts.


----------



## MrJava

I think the future sockets may be as follows:

4P:
8 DDR4 channels (DDR4-3200), 16 PCIe 3.0, 3-4 HT Links (server MCM)

High-end desktop (CPU and APU):
4 DDR4 channels (DDR4-3200), 32 PCIe 3.0, 8 PCIe 2.0

FM2+ (Carrizo):
2 DDR4 channels (DDR4-4266), 16 PCIe 3.0, 8 PCIe 2.0
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Maybe FM2(+) has less pins since the NB was integrated onto the die? No idea why Intel requires those extra pins.


----------



## Konbad

3 weeks, seems so far away.


----------



## MrJava

OK I promise I will not post on this thread until after APU13 ... unless someone starts making a fuss about steamroller on AM3+, then I'll have to join in.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> 3 weeks, seems so far away.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> OK I promise I will not post on this thread until after APU13 ... unless someone starts making a fuss about steamroller on AM3+, then I'll have to join in.


http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131017231002_AMD_to_Tape_Out_First_20nm_14nm_FinFET_Chips_Within_Next_Two_Quarters.html

Just one more.


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20131018224745_AMD_Excavator_Core_May_Dramatic_Performance_Increases.html

Yay something new-ish to talk about!


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20131018224745_AMD_Excavator_Core_May_Dramatic_Performance_Increases.html
> 
> Yay something new-ish to talk about!


Steamroller is still in the wind and we are talking about Excavator?


----------



## NaroonGTX

There are hardly any details about EX and SR isn't that far away and virtually everything about the uarch is already known. Don't see any harm in talking about it.


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There are hardly any details about EX and SR isn't that far away and virtually everything about the uarch is already known. Don't see any harm in talking about it.


Nah I don't mean it like that. I'm just saying that we hardly know anything concrete about steamroller and we already have new info on chips 3 years out.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Oh lol. My bad. I would find it pretty creepy if they started talking about whatever it is that comes after EX, myself lol. I literally haven't heard or seen anything about post-EX yet.


----------



## Konbad

EX is due out 2014 according to that graph they showed.. so q4 2014 or q1 2015, i hope steamroller is as fast as they proclaim and they do an 8 core version to compete with intel a real curveball would be good for the industry. there are people saying intel has maxxed its Arch people are saying intel is holding back because they can, if amd can catch up we can see what intel has up its sleeve. if anything


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Oh lol. My bad. I would find it pretty creepy if they started talking about whatever it is that comes after EX, myself lol. I literally haven't heard or seen anything about post-EX yet.


I know what's coming.
MOAR COREZ!!!


----------



## NaroonGTX

MOAR COARZ CONFIRMED!


----------



## Konbad

AHAHAHA.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> From what I heard Mantle will work on Linux too, so if that's true, it means more AAA games on Linux. I also recall hearing that AMD has been making strides in their Linux driver development too. If all this is true, AMD will be selling a lot more GCN cards, lol.


Don't forget that DICE has been saying that all it would take is ONE major AAA title to release on Linux for gaming on Linux to take off. Whether you believe that to be the case or not, DICE must feel the same way and there are pieces lining up.

1. Origin would be a very easy port to Linux as Origin uses QT which is cross-platform
2. BF4 is primarily distributed via Origin
3. BF4 is going to have Mantle support, and there's a good chance we can see Linux Mantle support
4. Mantle takes DirectX code and turns it into Mantle code, so game developers actually get Linux ports (for the most part) just by recompiling DIrectX code
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> >>Uhh I doubt they will be selling a significant number of cards to people using Linux. I mean, the market of people who care about building computers isn't big when compared to those who buy computers straight up. And the number of those who use Linux primarily to game is even smaller. It may not seem like it on this site but the number of us who go into Microcenter to drool over new processors isn't large in the grand scheme of computer sales.
> 
> Not sure why you made this reply to me. I said IF all this pans out (Mantle bringing more games to Linux, AMD fixing their Linux drivers, etc.) then they could build up their rep and sell more cards. I'm well aware of everything you said in your post, so no need to get on a soapbox to me. Enthusiasts make up a very small portion of overall sales for all companies (AMD, Nvidia, Intel, etc.) and I'm pretty sure I've said that numerous times in this very thread.
> 
> That said, I know many people (lots of them who dual-boot and enjoy using emu's on Linux and such) who would switch to Linux 100% if AMD had better drivers. Just because Linux users don't make up a majority of the market doesn't mean they should negate working on their craptastic Linux drivers.
> 
> edit - Old roadmaps
> 
> 
> From Jan. 2013
> 
> 
> Latest desktop
> 
> 
> Old slide from 2012 talking about future of Opteron parts.


Thank you, these are the old rumors I was talking about, where SR steamroller was supposed to come out in 2013. Something very clearly happened and IMO the fact that we don't have a SR Opteron, to me, indicates a sort of "unofficial delay". I use that term because the delay basically comes from rumors of a release that didn't happen and got postponed.

Although the two leaks of 20nm and 14nm, alongside that crazy die shot, and now talk of Excavator leads me to believe that there's a possibility these are all controlled leaks and AMD is telling us that they have completely skipped Steamroller big cores (server, HEDT) and are instead jumping to Excavator.

It's just a possibility, but sometimes when you see leaks like these it is a company hinting and things to get people talking about them (wow it's working!)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> 
> 
> MOAR COARZ CONFIRMED!




The AMD version, lol.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Great post, and I too think that some of these leaks were controlled leaks. AMD has shown that they can be ridiculously quiet when they want. I think a lot of these things were 'leaked' to keep conversation (like this XD) going, which is nice since it does kinda keep the hype going. APU '13 will be a very interesting event. Just a few more weeks...


----------



## MrJava

Intel and Microsoft got to where they are now through some luck with IBM and some really unethical practices. What else is new?
That's why I cheer on ARM/MIPS/Linux these days.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> .


----------



## EniGma1987

AMD embedded roadmap is out, they are just talking about their new embedded line of APUs. I hope this isnt the only roadmap that gets released for the APU event, cause that would really suck if we still lack any kind of confirmation. It does show a new Steamroller based embedded APU called "Bald Eagle"
http://www.slideshare.net/wilfredlin/amdembeddedroadmapunveilvfinal-130906181555

The last section of this slide, mentioning 2014 and beyond is a bit interesting, and not good sounding for people like us on this forum:


In other news, id love to have a router be based on the new "Hierofalcon" processor. The throughput on it would be amazing and with some 10-GbE connectivity? Heck ya.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> AMD embedded roadmap is out, they are just talking about their new embedded line of APUs. I hope this isnt the only roadmap that gets released for the APU event, cause that would really suck if we still lack any kind of confirmation. It does show a new Steamroller based embedded APU called "Bald Eagle"
> http://www.slideshare.net/wilfredlin/amdembeddedroadmapunveilvfinal-130906181555
> 
> The last section of this slide, mentioning 2014 and beyond is a bit interesting, and not good sounding for people like us on this forum:
> 
> 
> In other news, id love to have a router be based on the new "Hierofalcon" processor. The throughput on it would be amazing and with some 10-GbE connectivity? Heck ya.


As a long time AMD mobile user, this'll be interesting. VERY interesting.

I've been using AMD for my last three latpops; an AMD Phenom II N830, an AMD A8-3520M, and an AMD A6-4455M. The A6 is, by far, the worst in every way...

I don't know what AMD is trying to do. It's weird. They're going after the mobile sector with their embedded technologies, but they're staying out of phones and Android tablets (atleast as far as we've seen.) They're also trying to go after a platform that depends *extremely heavily* on an amazingly efficient process technology; something AMD doesnt have in comparison to Intel. Hell, Intel is releasing 14nm Q1 2014 ( http://www.cio-today.com/news/Intel-Delays-Broadwell-Chip/story.xhtml?story_id=111008IQEECX ); and AMD is just now moving to 28nm with their GPUs and still on 32nm with their CPUs. It's definitely unfair that Intel has the advantage, but that doesnt change anything.

Furthermore, their architecture inherently uses more power. Their long pipeline needs a high clockrate to work well, and a higher clockrate needs not only a higher voltage, but hand-in-hand, usually a better cooling solution. Alongside that, their long pipeline inherently has more physical parts on the die (just to name one; a PRF and scheduler instead of a unified scheduler) which takes more power to run.

I really have only a drop of faith in their FX modules to run well at all in the mobile world; let alone the embedded world. This'll be very, very interesting to see what they do; and this "increased parallelisation" mentioned doesnt _look_ to appear as "more power efficiency", which is exactly what they need.

If AMD is going to go after the mobile sector, FX modules isnt the answer. I have little faith or excitement for FX modules.

However, Bobcat was an architectural success and Jaguar? We'll see, I'm a little excited.


----------



## MrJava

You seem to be knowledgeable about processor design.Are you an EE, or in a electronics engineering program?

I think in terms of improvements for perf/watt they have:
- added the ability to power down unused L2 cache banks
- got rid of pipes in FPU which were burning power uselessly most of the time
- use of a micro-op buffer for loops (powered down decode?)

pure performance improvements:
- its been confirmed 4 instructions per cycle will be dispatched to each core each cycle (2x improvement)
- 96KB 3-way instruction cache
- doubled the branch predictor's L2 BTB
- i believe the data caches are larger and handle misses faster - i.e. reduces L2 hit latency
- cache and AGUs can handle 2 loads, 1 load + 1 store or 2 stores per cycle
- AGUs handle more types of micro-ops ??
- the scheduler is more efficient
- better handling of snoop traffic for L2 caches

So I think 20-30% increase in INT perf and maybe same or 5% increase in FP perf at the same power.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> As a long time AMD mobile user, this'll be interesting. VERY interesting.
> 
> I've been using AMD for my last three latpops; an AMD Phenom II N830, an AMD A8-3520M, and an AMD A6-4455M. The A6 is, by far, the worst in every way...
> 
> I don't know what AMD is trying to do. It's weird. They're going after the mobile sector with their embedded technologies, but they're staying out of phones and Android tablets (atleast as far as we've seen.) They're also trying to go after a platform that depends *extremely heavily* on an amazingly efficient process technology; something AMD doesnt have in comparison to Intel. Hell, Intel is releasing 14nm Q1 2014 ( http://www.cio-today.com/news/Intel-Delays-Broadwell-Chip/story.xhtml?story_id=111008IQEECX ); and AMD is just now moving to 28nm with their GPUs and still on 32nm with their CPUs. It's definitely unfair that Intel has the advantage, but that doesnt change anything.
> 
> Furthermore, their architecture inherently uses more power. Their long pipeline needs a high clockrate to work well, and a higher clockrate needs not only a higher voltage, but hand-in-hand, usually a better cooling solution. Alongside that, their long pipeline inherently has more physical parts on the die (just to name one; a PRF and scheduler instead of a unified scheduler) which takes more power to run.
> 
> I really have only a drop of faith in their FX modules to run well at all in the mobile world; let alone the embedded world. This'll be very, very interesting to see what they do; and this "increased parallelisation" mentioned doesnt _look_ to appear as "more power efficiency", which is exactly what they need.
> 
> If AMD is going to go after the mobile sector, FX modules isnt the answer. I have little faith or excitement for FX modules.
> 
> However, Bobcat was an architectural success and Jaguar? We'll see, I'm a little excited.


----------



## PandaX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> 1. Origin would be a very easy port to Linux as *Origin uses QT* which is cross-platform


Whoa, thanks for that info., I never knew about that. O_O


----------



## Seronx

Improvements:
Branch/Pre-Fetch Domain -> Each thread has it's own branch/pre-fetch unit.
Instruction Fetch Domain -> Each thread has it's own IF unit.
Instruction Pick Domain -> Doubled in size: 512B per core
Decode Domain -> Enough to give each thread 4 single COps and 2 double COps
Dispatch Domain -> Doubled or more in size: 16+ macro-ops per core and optimized for loop behaviors

Floating Point Frontend: Duplicated most likely each thread has it's own scheduler now.
Floating Point Backend: Doubled.


----------



## MrJava

You may as well go back to SMP at that point. Its one IF and BP unit. IF fetches 32B for one core each cycle and IBB size is probably the same. FPU is reduced, not doubled for power and area efficiency gains.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Improvements:
> Branch/Pre-Fetch Domain -> Each thread has it's own branch/pre-fetch unit.
> Instruction Fetch Domain -> Each thread has it's own IF unit.
> Instruction Pick Domain -> Doubled in size: 512B per core
> Decode Domain -> Enough to give each thread 4 single COps and 2 double COps
> Dispatch Domain -> Doubled or more in size: 16+ macro-ops per core and optimized for loop behaviors
> 
> Floating Point Frontend: Duplicated most likely each thread has it's own scheduler now.
> Floating Point Backend: Doubled.


----------



## Seronx

Here is my updated labels.


----------



## re73

I have actually had the same thoughts as sdlvx about that AMD might skip SR for FX. Why?

Well, they are behind in IPC and they know it, improvements in instruction and FP scheduling, cache performance improvements as well as other things(no need to bring all of them up) and they don't have a lot of money to spend. So how do they save time and money?

To be very clear here, these are my thoughts based on what I read in this thread and other places on internet, there are NO SOURCES what so ever









The SR core exists and is most likely doing well in kaveri, but the work and cost to put 3-4 modules (or even maybe 5) together, slap some L3 cache on the die and prepare production should not be underestimated. So really, by going forward with Excavator instead they might actually save a year in time and also the complete cost of the industrialization of the SR FX die (if FX as a name will be there is another discussion, I use it as a known reference name only).
That strategy might also time it quite nicely with a new socket that uses quad channel DDR4 as well and also line up with a intel DDR4 offering, but we don't know that, actually, we don't know much at all









And to be honest, I do hope that MrJava is incorrect and Seronx is correct when it comes to the FPU, I don't want it to be smaller, I want a beefed up one







, and yes, I rather have a 125w Excavator with beefed up FPU then a 65w one with a shrinked FPU, but hey, hopefully we get the roadmap soon enough... and first of all I am waiting for a new Nexus, but that is not on the topic today.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> AMD embedded roadmap is out, they are just talking about their new embedded line of APUs. I hope this isnt the only roadmap that gets released for the APU event, cause that would really suck if we still lack any kind of confirmation. It does show a new Steamroller based embedded APU called "Bald Eagle"
> http://www.slideshare.net/wilfredlin/amdembeddedroadmapunveilvfinal-130906181555
> 
> The last section of this slide, mentioning 2014 and beyond is a bit interesting, and not good sounding for people like us on this forum:
> 
> 
> In other news, id love to have a router be based on the new "Hierofalcon" processor. The throughput on it would be amazing and with some 10-GbE connectivity? Heck ya.


The embedded roadmap has been out for a month and has little or nothing to do with the consumer apu,cpu roadmap tyat is being released November 11-12 at the developers conference. Nice try.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The embedded roadmap has been out for a month and has little or nothing to do with the consumer apu,cpu roadmap tyat is being released November 11-12 at the developers conference. Nice try.


lol. You always have to come across with an ******* comment don't you? Dont think I have seen a single thing from you where you aren't thinking that the world is out to try and do something horrid to you. But thanks for informing us the roadmap is a month old now, doesn't seem like anyone else in the thread has seen it besides you. I just saw a news thread posted on it today actually, and the upload of the slideshow from the site I saw it on says it was put up a couple weeks ago (Oct. 2nd), and the slideshow lists that this is for the APU13 conference, which is why I said "I hope this isn't the only roadmap we get"


----------



## NaroonGTX

Embedded roadmap was released back in September: Linkage


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> lol. You always have to come across with an ******* comment don't you? Dont think I have seen a single thing from you where you aren't thinking that the world is out to try and do something horrid to you. But thanks for informing us the roadmap is a month old now, doesn't seem like anyone else in the thread has seen it besides you. I just saw a news thread posted on it today actually, and the upload of the slideshow from the site I saw it on says it was put up a couple weeks ago (Oct. 2nd), and the slideshow lists that this is for the APU13 conference, which is why I said "I hope this isn't the only roadmap we get"


The thread you picked that off it was misrepresenting the facts, as are most threads concerning AMD. They are dominated by trolls who have nothing new or positive to contribute or who are so ignorant they have no credibility. You have to learn to sit back and digest these comments very carefully, the vast majority are full of speculation and misinformation. Don't quote them as fact until you are sure they are accurate. Sorry if I came across so strongly, I am very tired of all the b.s. that is posted online about AMD and my patience is a little worn thin. Three weeks to learn the actual situation is not that long to wait . Once again nothing personal.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *re73*
> 
> I have actually had the same thoughts as sdlvx about that AMD might skip SR for FX. Why?
> 
> Well, they are behind in IPC and they know it, improvements in instruction and FP scheduling, cache performance improvements as well as other things(no need to bring all of them up) and they don't have a lot of money to spend. So how do they save time and money?
> 
> To be very clear here, these are my thoughts based on what I read in this thread and other places on internet, there are NO SOURCES what so ever
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The SR core exists and is most likely doing well in kaveri, but the work and cost to put 3-4 modules (or even maybe 5) together, slap some L3 cache on the die and prepare production should not be underestimated. So really, by going forward with Excavator instead they might actually save a year in time and also the complete cost of the industrialization of the SR FX die (if FX as a name will be there is another discussion, I use it as a known reference name only).
> That strategy might also time it quite nicely with a new socket that uses quad channel DDR4 as well and also line up with a intel DDR4 offering, but we don't know that, actually, we don't know much at all
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And to be honest, I do hope that MrJava is incorrect and Seronx is correct when it comes to the FPU, I don't want it to be smaller, I want a beefed up one
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> , and yes, I rather have a 125w Excavator with beefed up FPU then a 65w one with a shrinked FPU, but hey, hopefully we get the roadmap soon enough... and first of all I am waiting for a new Nexus, but that is not on the topic today.


I keep seeing where the industry is headed, where AMD is headed, and what AMD is talking about and none of it synergises with the goal of Steamroller having "Greater Parallelism".



The goal of SR in that slide seems to me like it's a goal that existed before HSA was a big thing. If you are going to pass off all the highly threaded code to the GPU, then you don't want a CPU that is weak at single thread and fast at multi-thread.

People seem to think that high frequency, low IPC is a consequence of the module design, as mentioned earlier it is a consequence of design decisions of each core in a module, such as longer pipelines.

I would think that AMD would want to abandon low IPC high frequency designs as fast as possible given their goals. I would also think that they would want to abandon their market position right now, which is "FX is a great value if you're doing multi-threaded work but you take a single thread hit.

If AMD could improve single thread performance and keep modules about the same size, they'd have a massive winner.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Greater Parallelism = HSA, OpenCL, etc. HSA isn't exactly a new consideration -- it was the goal of AMD ever since they bought out ATi back in 2006.

The IPC will be improved with SR and EX and so on. It was always unlikely that they could release a brand new uarch which was built from scratch and have it perform like they wanted it to, unless it was delayed longer than 2011, which would've been disastrous. Kaveri will retain the high clocks of Piledriver while simultaneously increasing both single- and multi-threaded performance. EX will have the clocks drop down a bit due to HDL yet the increased performance will offset that anyway.


----------



## Deadboy90

Dbl post


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If AMD could improve single thread performance and keep modules about the same size, they'd have a massive winner.


If they manage to do that with Steamroller I will poo out an Escalade.







I'm really praying for an FX Steamroller Processor on AM3+. I don't want my new Saberkitty to be a total waste of money. (You know, more than upgrading computers usually are.







) ill continue to hold up hope until AMD says to our faces that we aren't getting it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

We'll know the fate of AM3+ once the new 2014 roadmaps come out around the time of APU '13 on Nov. 11~13th.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Greater Parallelism = HSA, OpenCL, etc. HSA isn't exactly a new consideration -- it was the goal of AMD ever since they bought out ATi back in 2006.
> 
> The IPC will be improved with SR and EX and so on. It was always unlikely that they could release a brand new uarch which was built from scratch and have it perform like they wanted it to, unless it was delayed longer than 2011, which would've been disastrous. Kaveri will retain the high clocks of Piledriver while simultaneously increasing both single- and multi-threaded performance. EX will have the clocks drop down a bit due to HDL yet the increased performance will offset that anyway.


Yes single threaded performance will improve significantly and multi.threaded performance per core will also improve, but with 4 versus piledriver 8 cores the over all multi-threaded performance declines significsntly for the total steamroller cpu. It will not correct until a 6 or 8 core excavator is released , hopefully in late 2015. HSA will not be widely adopted until 2016 at best, so it is a valid issue to raise.


----------



## re73

I do think/hope that there will be a "FX" Excavator as that segment is still needed, and I am not completely convinced that greater parallelism is HSA, OpenCL etc. at least not in that slide... but I could be wrong there (it is just a feeling), and just as you said sdlvx, it might been a goal that existed before HSA as a goal, but I am not sure there either.









The real benefit of what AMD is doing with the APU's is that they are setting the standard, ALL their supplied systems will be HSA enabled and that will be good for HSA acceptance, The lower end systems will benefit from the unified address space (even though data still sometimes needs to be copied and padded to have a good size of the OpenCL work-groups) as there will be no transfer time between the CPU and GPU. The higher end systems will still be discrete GPU's.

And there is one other thing with GPU programming/OpenCL that we have to think of as well, it is not well suited for parallel loads with a lot of control flow (if- else if -else if -else) as (in AMD case) 64 Processing Elements are executed in parallel with the same program counter, that means that all threads needs to enter all possible ways through the code and that becomes a total waste of code execution. That means that there are quite a few parallel loads that do not really benefit from HSA/OpenCL.

But still, we are not there yet, I do see the benefit of APU looking forward but for now, the big CPU still look quite good when doing heavy work as the software still don't use OpenCL to much and the one's that do have the big CPU's in their rigs usually have a quite nice OpenCL enabled GPU as well, so they are not a "problem" for the vision.









One thing about the APU's though, is there any indications about their double precision float capabilities? Today the lower and mid tier discrete GPU's double precision float performance is about 1/16th of the single precision performance, and the higher end the ration is 1/4th of the speed (79xx, and the 7870xt as well and I do assume that the newly released one has that ratio as well).
I raise this question as one of the goals of HSA is scientific calculations, but those tends to move towards double precision floats nowadays (at least the ones that I see close). For image processing single precision is quite enough though (and yes, quite a few other applications as well, bare in mind, I am not saying that all calculations needs doubles).


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *re73*
> 
> I do think/hope that there will be a "FX" Excavator as that segment is still needed, and I am not completely convinced that greater parallelism is HSA, OpenCL etc. at least not in that slide... but I could be wrong there (it is just a feeling), and just as you said sdlvx, it might been a goal that existed before HSA as a goal, but I am not sure there either.


IIRC, Steamroller has not been a goal since before HSA. The Bulldozer arch was designed for APUs to start with, and HSA/Fusion has been the goal since AMD's acquisition of ATI.

That being said, considering the cache, decoder, and other improvements to SR, x86 parallelism is definitely a goal; not just HSA.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Greater Parallelism = HSA, OpenCL, etc. HSA isn't exactly a new consideration -- it was the goal of AMD ever since they bought out ATi back in 2006.
> 
> The IPC will be improved with SR and EX and so on. It was always unlikely that they could release a brand new uarch which was built from scratch and have it perform like they wanted it to, unless it was delayed longer than 2011, which would've been disastrous. Kaveri will retain the high clocks of Piledriver while simultaneously increasing both single- and multi-threaded performance. EX will have the clocks drop down a bit due to HDL yet the increased performance will offset that anyway.


with Piledriver amd has a large amount of overclocking headroom i could see AMD releasing EX with the same clocks as PD/SR with virtually no overclocking headroom. it would make the chips look good to majority of consumers abandoning the enthusiast overclocker (hardcore guys will still do stuff) but you can see it with intel also each gen has less and less headroom for overclocking and by the time 2015 rolls around intel might not even have a K series CPU on their mainstream socket. intel has enough market share to say you want to overclock buy our enthusiast 2011 socket. eventually people will have to move to their new chips. its not something you can avoid.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes single threaded performance will improve significantly and multi.threaded performance per core will also improve, but with 4 versus piledriver 8 cores the over all multi-threaded performance declines significsntly for the total steamroller cpu. It will not correct until a 6 or 8 core excavator is released , hopefully in late 2015. HSA will not be widely adopted until 2016 at best, so it is a valid issue to raise.


I still think its possible to see excavator late next year its not like its development would have been delayed as much by FAB issues like SR which i think was originally slated for Q4 this year to be on shelves. HSA for me is not a thing untill it has some major support until then people saying buy AMD HSA will make it soo much better "when" its adopted is assuming every developer in the world will support it. ill worry about HSA just like Mantle when there is a decent number of programs i use that support it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think the earliest we would see an EX chip is early 2015, probably a year after Kaveri launches, of course it would be an APU though. I don't think the chips would release with no OC headroom, but it would depend on many factors and we really have nothing to go off of right now so it's a bit too early to say.

Mantle will see much quicker adoption than HSA will. Mantle is based around developers putting it into their engines, whilst HSA is a universal initiative that relies on coders and companies to see what it is and start using it in their products. EA will have Mantle in tons of their games as most of the upcoming EA titles are using the Frostbite 3 engine. There was a game shown at the AMD GPU '14 event that was running on CryEngine 3, so it seems that engine will also support it. Seeing as how developers have been wishing for a console-like API for ages, Mantle will take off fairly quickly as everyone, including devs, will benefit from it.


----------



## Konbad

im not saying they will do it but its a possibility they could sacrifice some OC headroom to have faster out of the box performance which the majority of people care about there are less overclockers then there are gaming/powerusers.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Well most likely the clocks of EX will drop by default as they implement HDL, but the performance itself would increase drastically (one of the main points of EX is increasing performance according to AMD) anyway which would offset that. People wouldn't mind lower clocks if the performance exceeds the predecessor by a good amount. OC headroom might decrease for sure as a result, but I don't think it would be barren.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> im not saying they will do it but its a possibility they could sacrifice some OC headroom to have faster out of the box performance which the majority of people care about there are less overclockers then there are gaming/powerusers.


20nm with HDL would make a very small chip. 8m/16c PD on 32nm with HDL is around 330mm^2 per my calculations assuming about 30% decrease in core size per module.

Perhaps this is what AMD is waiting for? For 20nm with HDL so they can give us a 4m/8c APU with a decent amount of GCN CUs attached.

4m/8c + the same amount of die space used for GCN CUs would still give a die smaller than Orochi currently is now.

Then, AMD gaming rig would be:

4m/8 CPU + iGPU for HSA + Radeon dGPU.

If AMD did that, Intel would be gone from the gaming CPU market so fast.

If you had an HSA enabled game (like OpenCL physics), you'd more than likely have choices with CPUs like this:

AMD APU + dGPU = full experience, dGPU only used for rendering (think of it as PhysX with a dedicated PhysX card)

Intel CPU + AMD GPU = full experience, dGPU used for GPGPU and rendering so it takes a frame rate hit (think of it as PhysX running on GPU with only one GPU

Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU = no special features, runs fine (think of it as playing PhysX on an AMD CPU and GPU system)

Considering AMD has the consoles this is a far more likely scenario than PhysX support or anything Intel can go for PC gaming.

EDIT: Also, what's up with the "AM3+ HAS BEEN AROUND FOR EVER IT'S TIME TO UPGRADE!" FUD that's going around. I thought AM3+ has been around a while, it came out with bdver1 and before that it was just AM3.


----------



## Konbad

just that the 990FX Chipset is dated and lacks features compared to A88X. nothing wrong with AM3+ really other than the chipset


----------



## MrJava

Charlie over at semi-accurate has written some nice articles explaining HUMA and HQueueing, and enabling these technologies with discrete GPUs. Make no mistake, they require on-die PCIe controllers for bandwidth and latency reasons, and PCIe 3.0 at the minimum. AM3+/990FX is archaic by today's standards and should have been killed off for FM2 with vishera.

People are throwing around HDL like its some sort of magic to make process node N behave like process node N+1. I'm not an EE, but that seems odd and I believe this HDL stuff only really applies to FPU and SIMD components since these "high density libraries" are designed by AMD's graphics arm. So the FPU can shrink by about 30%, but not the entire chip (I'm talking cores, caches and I/O). If I'm wrong correct me, but your explanation will require more than a bunch of buzzwords.

As to what's still possible on the common platform 28nm, lookup Oracle's M6 and Fujitsu's SPARC X+: these are 12 and 16 core chips with very large caches (24-32 meg) running at around 3.5GHz. Albeit, they're large (500+ mm2) with massive TDPs. I'm beginning to see the reasons why AMD might want to wait for the 20nm node to take another crack at big iron server chips.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> EDIT: Also, what's up with the "AM3+ HAS BEEN AROUND FOR EVER IT'S TIME TO UPGRADE!" FUD that's going around. I thought AM3+ has been around a while, it came out with bdver1 and before that it was just AM3.


Have you guys ever seen this graph? Poster on amdzone has done some micro-benchmarks in assembly to determine IPC for various instructions/instruction mixes. These benchmarks obviously paint a very optimistic picture since the benchmarks and data fit into L1 and L2 caches. Green is piledriver, blue is ivy, red is core 2.


Link to original post. Credit to "Phenominal" @ AMDZONE
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=532&t=139961


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Charlie over at semi-accurate has written some nice articles explaining HUMA and HQueueing, and enabling these technologies with discrete GPUs. Make no mistake, they require on-die PCIe controllers for bandwidth and latency reasons, and PCIe 3.0 at the minimum. AM3+/990FX is archaic by today's standards and should have been killed off for FM2 with vishera.
> 
> People are throwing around HDL like its some sort of magic to make process node N behave like process node N+1. I'm not an EE, but that seems odd and I believe this HDL stuff only really applies to FPU and SIMD components since these "high density libraries" are designed by AMD's graphics arm. So the FPU can shrink by about 30%, but not the entire chip (I'm talking cores, caches and I/O). If I'm wrong correct me, but your explanation will require more than a bunch of buzzwords.
> 
> As to what's still possible on the common platform 28nm, lookup Oracle's M6 and Fujitsu's SPARC X+: these are 12 and 16 core chips with very large caches (24-32 meg) running at around 3.5GHz. Albeit, they're large (500+ mm2) with massive TDPs. I'm beginning to see the reasons why AMD might want to wait for the 20nm node to take another crack at big iron server chips.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> EDIT: Also, what's up with the "AM3+ HAS BEEN AROUND FOR EVER IT'S TIME TO UPGRADE!" FUD that's going around. I thought AM3+ has been around a while, it came out with bdver1 and before that it was just AM3.
> 
> 
> 
> Have you guys ever seen this graph? Poster on amdzone has done some micro-benchmarks in assembly to determine IPC for various instructions/instruction mixes. These benchmarks obviously paint a very optimistic picture since the benchmarks and data fit into L1 and L2 caches. Green is piledriver, blue is ivy, red is core 2.
> 
> 
> Link to original post. Credit to "Phenominal" @ AMDZONE
> http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=532&t=139961
Click to expand...

Yes, I am well aware of what happens when PD gets non-Wintel code. I have been running Gentoo and I have seen some impressive speedups.

more than twice as fast in Blender than with the official Blender.org builds
more than 60% increase in LAME encoding speed at default settings
about 10% increase in x264 performance
about 5% more performance in FF performance but I had issues like screen flickering as you're not supposed to enable compiler optimizations for FF.


----------



## MrJava

What that graph tells me is that the FPU cluster is not too shabby as it is, INT cores are another story though. I think if they put another ALU on the first AGU port, you'd get some nice speedup for a small silicon investment (and some changes to the scheduler). Then the core could sustain 3 IPC for common ops like "move immediate", "move reg to reg". "move reg to mem" and "add/sub". It would make sense the core is now getting 4 instructions dispatched per cycle vs. 2 instructions per cycle in the best case.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Yes, I am well aware of what happens when PD gets non-Wintel code. I have been running Gentoo and I have seen some impressive speedups.
> 
> more than twice as fast in Blender than with the official Blender.org builds
> more than 60% increase in LAME encoding speed at default settings
> about 10% increase in x264 performance
> about 5% more performance in FF performance but I had issues like screen flickering as you're not supposed to enable compiler optimizations for FF.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> ...these are 12 and 16 core chips with very large caches (24-32 meg) running at around 3.5GHz. Albeit, they're large (500+ mm2) with massive TDPs. I'm beginning to see the reasons why AMD might want to wait for the 20nm node to take another crack at big iron server chips.


The reason for being big and power hungry is what you just said, huge caches. L3 cache not only takes up a massive amount of die space but it also requires a good bit of power. That is one of the reasons we dont have l3 on APU's, because the space can be better used by more graphics cores and we cant fit in a decent TDP envelope with CPU + GPU + l3. If you look at the die of an FX-8350 you will see that all the space taken up by all the cores combined is right about the same amount of space that just 8MB of l3 cache takes up. When you combine L2 and L3 cache for die space, the entire rest of the processor doesn't even take up as much die space as those two cache spaces.

Oh HDL, I thought the libraries that can be used were from the fab? Not from AMD? AMD just happens to be moving to build their processors with the HDL libraries at the space fab and on the same process type as they have been using for their graphics cards... But maybe Im wrong about that. Thats just what I had thought I read before in the past about fab libraries.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> The reason for being big and power hungry is what you just said, huge caches. L3 cache not only takes up a massive amount of die space but it also requires a good bit of power. That is one of the reasons we dont have l3 on APU's, because the space can be better used by more graphics cores and we cant fit in a decent TDP envelope with CPU + GPU + l3. If you look at the die of an FX-8350 you will see that all the space taken up by all the cores combined is right about the same amount of space that just 8MB of l3 cache takes up. When you combine L2 and L3 cache for die space, the entire rest of the processor doesn't even take up as much die space as those two cache spaces.
> 
> Oh HDL, I thought the libraries that can be used were from the fab? Not from AMD? AMD just happens to be moving to build their processors with the HDL libraries at the space fab and on the same process type as they have been using for their graphics cards... But maybe Im wrong about that. Thats just what I had thought I read before in the past about fab libraries.


I see no reason however on FM2+ or possibly FM3 that when excavator releases in 2015 why at least a 6 core apu is not possible without a very large die size.


----------



## MrJava

I still think 4MB of cache is plenty for the market that Kaveri addresses. If they are going to add an extra level in the hierarchy, then it should be a very large eDRAM based cache shared by CPU and GPU (32-64MB). It could even be stacked or on an interposer.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't think an APU with at least three modules and decent graphics is impossible. There's no reason it couldn't be done, even on 28nm bulk.

On HDL, I remember reading that AMD is using the same HDL tech that was used in its GPU designs, but they're using it _for_ CPU implementation, which is why it was ever actually mentioned in the first place. Seems to me that Carrizo will actually still be on 28nm, but the usage of HDL to reduce power and die space will be how they mimic an actual process node shrink. This is one reason (besides further tweaking on the uarchs) that they could target 45 and 65W max TDP SKU's. This will allow them to remain on a mature node rather than once again fumbling around with new nodes.

Just looked, and here's an article from last year about it: Link


----------



## EniGma1987

Your right, No reason at all it couldn't, even without utilizing new libraries. The current 32nm process node can fit 5 modules (10 cores) and no GPU and still be reasonably sized and fit a 125w TDP, and that includes L3 cache with it. Take out the L3 and 2 modules (so you have a 6 core) and you have enough room for a GPU like we have on Richland now. So it is fully possible right now, AMD just doesn't want to. Moving to 28nm and no HDL it is even more possible because it takes less space, and then after HDL implementation it would be even smaller still. At that point you could even fit a 4 module + GPU in one package.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I maintain that AMD should've never canceled their Komodo platform. Vishera was originally supposed to be on FM2 and it would've featured up to 10 cores (5 modules). The adoption rate for FM2+ would've been even higher and they would've already had their unified socket in order.

The thing is, AMD originally had plans for a version of Kaveri with 3 modules.



Not really sure why they decided to cancel this.


----------



## Konbad

maybe they thought on more line of high core count CPU's before they are ready to have 6/8 core versions of APU's was a smarter choice? not long now till we know


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't think an APU with at least three modules and decent graphics is impossible. There's no reason it couldn't be done, even on 28nm bulk.
> 
> On HDL, I remember reading that AMD is using the same HDL tech that was used in its GPU designs, but they're using it _for_ CPU implementation, which is why it was ever actually mentioned in the first place. Seems to me that Carrizo will actually still be on 28nm, but the usage of HDL to reduce power and die space will be how they mimic an actual process node shrink. This is one reason (besides further tweaking on the uarchs) that they could target 45 and 65W max TDP SKU's. This will allow them to remain on a mature node rather than once again fumbling around with new nodes.
> 
> Just looked, and here's an article from last year about it: Link


I totally disagree that Carrizo which is Excavator will be on .28 nm. AMD has previously stated excavstor would be on.22nm process. There is no reason to believe this has changed , especially after statements from them and Global that that process is on schedule.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I wasn't aware that AMD said they would have EX on that node. Guess now I know.


----------



## Seronx

Steamroller; 28nm - 2014
Excavator; 28nm - 2015
Excavator+; 20nm - 2016.
Next-gen Core; 20nm - 2017.

It is expected that the transitions to smaller nodes to increase from 18 months -> 21 months -> 24 months and so on.


----------



## Konbad

isnt intel planning 7nm by 2017. by then they should be focusing hard on something entirely new(graphene/CNT). but by then the need for a high power PC for me at least will be over ill probably be a "retro" gamer by then playing stuff like tf2 and CS still


----------



## Moragg

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller; 28nm - 2014
> Excavator; 28nm - 2015
> Excavator+; 20nm - 2016.
> Next-gen Core; 20nm - 2017.
> 
> It is expected that the transitions to smaller nodes to increase from 18 months -> 21 months -> 24 months and so on.


Wow... I didn't realise AMD was that far behind Intel.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Moragg*
> 
> Wow... I didn't realise AMD was that far behind Intel.


AMD doesn't own foundries and TSMC and GlobalFoundries have other customers.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Does anyone have a source for AMD saying EX would be on 20/22nm? I don't recall them ever actually saying anything about EX besides announcing its existence.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Does anyone have a source for AMD saying EX would be on 20/22nm? I don't recall them ever actually saying anything about EX besides announcing its existence.


The only design that is confirmed to be 20nm is Leopard, which is the successor to Jaguar/Mountain Lion.

Jaguar: 28nm
Kabini
Temash

Mountain Lion: 28nm
Beema
Mullins

Leopard: 20nm

Leopard+: 20nm

Margay: 16nm

Margay+: 16nm


----------



## NaroonGTX

Ah. I stand by what I said earlier, that Carrizo will be on 28nm. Why bother with dropping to another node if they can achieve similar results with HDL? Then they could put whatever will succeed Carrizo (Carrizo refresh or unannounced Bulldozer successor APU) on 20nm.


----------



## Seronx

Kaveri is the first Bulldozer design to use High Density Libraries and be in production. Which, Carrizo will improve on that design to give higher clocks and lower power consumption.

---
GlobalFoundries: Dozer Family, LP GPUs.
TSMC: Cat Family, HP GPUs


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Ah. I stand by what I said earlier, that Carrizo will be on 28nm. Why bother with dropping to another node if they can achieve similar results with HDL? Then they could put whatever will succeed Carrizo (Carrizo refresh or unannounced Bulldozer successor APU) on 20nm.


Since the .22nm process is on schedule according to AMD and Global Foundries and has been projected to be ready sometime in 2015, I would think excavator in some form will be produced on it in 2015. It is important to AMD's economic health to have it available sooner rather than later. I see no reason to believe Excavator will not be on this process. The only possible reason would be if excavator went into production by January or February 2015 before the final adjustments of .22nm were completed.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Not really sure why they decided to cancel this.


Maybe they haven't.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't think an APU with at least three modules and decent graphics is impossible. There's no reason it couldn't be done, even on 28nm bulk.
> 
> On HDL, I remember reading that AMD is using the same HDL tech that was used in its GPU designs, but they're using it _for_ CPU implementation, which is why it was ever actually mentioned in the first place. Seems to me that Carrizo will actually still be on 28nm, but the usage of HDL to reduce power and die space will be how they mimic an actual process node shrink. This is one reason (besides further tweaking on the uarchs) that they could target 45 and 65W max TDP SKU's. This will allow them to remain on a mature node rather than once again fumbling around with new nodes.
> 
> Just looked, and here's an article from last year about it: Link


They showed a reduction in the size of the FPU, not the entire module. I still don't think that HDL is a magical solution to being a process node behind.

So if they've used these libraries in the design of steamroller, then you have the same theoretical throughput as bulldozer/piledriver but more power and area efficient.
If excavator is on the 28nm, I think the design changes would have to be fairly radical to get a further increase in performance per watt. Assuming the FPU basically doubled, then they'll need to find savings in other areas. Maybe they'll move to 2 modules being the basic building block of a excavator based processor with 2 modules sharing an L2 cache ala jaguar.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Maybe they'll move to 4 modules being the basic building block of a excavator based processor with 4 modules sharing an L2 cache ala jaguar.


That would be a radical departure from the current architecture and would require a good bit of work since the entire module would need to be re-arranged. Then the L2 would also take a huge hit in performance because it would become more like L3 style cache that is in the processor but not in the module and farther from the cores, which would greatly reduce all cores performance since you still have each core writing all its L1 data into L2 as well. You might also get even more "cache thrashing" since more cores and trying to dump data into the same cache space than we currently have.


----------



## MrJava

I should have said 2, not 4 modules sharing an L2 cache. It allowed major power savings in the cat family, so the approach might work for big cores. They can bank it more aggressively than jaguar to allow more concurrent reads and writes to the L2 cache. The jaguar presentation at hotchips mention that because of the shared L2 cache, per core IPC will decrease in heavily threaded scenarios. For lightly threaded loads, per core IPC will be higher (less cache pressure).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> That would be a radical departure from the current architecture and would require a good bit of work since the entire module would need to be re-arranged. Then the L2 would also take a huge hit in performance because it would become more like L3 style cache that is in the processor but not in the module and farther from the cores, which would greatly reduce all cores performance since you still have each core writing all its L1 data into L2 as well. You might also get even more "cache thrashing" since more cores and trying to dump data into the same cache space than we currently have.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Not really sure why they decided to cancel this.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe they haven't.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't think an APU with at least three modules and decent graphics is impossible. There's no reason it couldn't be done, even on 28nm bulk.
> 
> On HDL, I remember reading that AMD is using the same HDL tech that was used in its GPU designs, but they're using it _for_ CPU implementation, which is why it was ever actually mentioned in the first place. Seems to me that Carrizo will actually still be on 28nm, but the usage of HDL to reduce power and die space will be how they mimic an actual process node shrink. This is one reason (besides further tweaking on the uarchs) that they could target 45 and 65W max TDP SKU's. This will allow them to remain on a mature node rather than once again fumbling around with new nodes.
> 
> Just looked, and here's an article from last year about it: Link
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> They showed a reduction in the size of the FPU, not the entire module. I still don't think that HDL is a magical solution to being a process node behind.
> 
> So if they've used these libraries in the design of steamroller, then you have the same theoretical throughput as bulldozer/piledriver but more power and area efficient.
> If excavator is on the 28nm, I think the design changes would have to be fairly radical to get a further increase in performance per watt. Assuming the FPU basically doubled, then they'll need to find savings in other areas. Maybe they'll move to 2 modules being the basic building block of a excavator based processor with 2 modules sharing an L2 cache ala jaguar.
Click to expand...

Well, gaming PC is the only real HEDT market that is growing in DT.

Perhaps AMD will beef up the FPU like crazy and use HDL on it to see massive gains in floating point operations (which games use a ton of)?

Remember, bdver1 was supposed to be a server chip, and AMD is completely uncompetitive in servers with PD and BD. They have pretty much bled all their market share.

AMD needs to make radical changes to bulldozer designs in order to adapt to the changing market of x86 servers not being needed anymore and better served by ARM and micro-servers and gaming PCs becoming the only real growing segment of HEDT.


----------



## MrJava

Remember the IPC graph from pg. 115? Well, FP performance is not really the issue. Its INT performance where AMD gets hammered. I'd assume that most programs were 90% about INT performance anyway at the minimum (branches, adds, muls, loads, stores etc.) Also remember that AVX2 is an extension which allows 256-bit vectors of integers to be used in the existing 256-bit AVX registers, i.e. an improvement to INT SIMD performance.

Edit: Also, piledriver handles "no-ops" quickly.








Edit 2: So a 4 ALU/4 AGU INT cores would be welcome in addition to 256-bit FMACs.

And server parts will always take precedence for AMD since the margin is the highest there.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Well, gaming PC is the only real HEDT market that is growing in DT.
> 
> Perhaps AMD will beef up the FPU like crazy and use HDL on it to see massive gains in floating point operations (which games use a ton of)?
> 
> Remember, bdver1 was supposed to be a server chip, and AMD is completely uncompetitive in servers with PD and BD. They have pretty much bled all their market share.
> 
> AMD needs to make radical changes to bulldozer designs in order to adapt to the changing market of x86 servers not being needed anymore and better served by ARM and micro-servers and gaming PCs becoming the only real growing segment of HEDT.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> ...AMD needs to make radical changes to bulldozer designs in order to adapt to the changing market of x86 servers not being needed anymore and better served by ARM and micro-servers...


Actually, they're moving Opteron (the low power chips, at least) to CortexA57 rather than Jaguar or a Bulldozer variant starting next year; they're not only prepared for the move, they're almost spearheading it (Calxeda beat them to the first ARM server, but theirs is a quad A9 at 1.2ghz max, and requires a normal x86 server to run).


----------



## MrJava

AMD will be selling competitive x86 solutions and competitive ARM solutions as well.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Actually, they're moving Opteron (the low power chips, at least) to CortexA57 rather than Jaguar or a Bulldozer variant starting next year; they're not only prepared for the move, they're almost spearheading it (Calxeda beat them to the first ARM server, but theirs is a quad A9 at 1.2ghz max, and requires a normal x86 server to run).


----------



## Konbad

counting the days... its not long now


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Moragg*
> 
> Wow... I didn't realise AMD was that far behind Intel.


Seronx is blowing hot air now. There has been no release from AMD of any kind that Excavator will be on .28nm. Now it may come to that, but that does not give him the right to put it out there as fact. You have done this before. When will you learn your lesson?? Source please!!!


----------



## Seronx

http://www.linkedin.com/in/pandyaanil

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Alinkedin.com+AMD+Excavator


----------



## EniGma1987

You do realize that with the release date of Excavator being what it is and the time that guy stopped working for AMD that the process node can completely change as well as much of the design, right? It honestly looks more like he was involved in Steamroller design and maybe some very basic, very early thought process on Excavator and nothing else. That is no confirmation about the design being 28nm, especially since AMD will be having 20nm and 14nm designs out in the same time frame as the Excavator release

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131017231002_AMD_to_Tape_Out_First_20nm_14nm_FinFET_Chips_Within_Next_Two_Quarters.html

It has to do with both graphics and low power processor cores, but that doesnt mean we wont see other designs than just those two types on some new node. It also means AMD is fully capable and will have designed products for these small process nodes so they wont be stuck in 28nm on all fronts. We also know AMD plans to move all products away from SoI and into Bulk, which means that 20nm TSMC node might be usable for CPUs as well


----------



## Konbad

i literally posted that link days ago....


----------



## Seronx

@EniGma1987

Tape outs != Release.

Steamroller/Kaveri taped out in late Q3 2012 to early Q4 2012.


----------



## EniGma1987

Yes, and we have a worldwide product release a year later in Q4 2013. So if AMD tapes out 20nm and 14nm designs within 3-6 months from now that is a year or more before we are likely to see Excavator.


----------



## MrJava

Doing a new design on a new process node has been problematic for AMD in the past. I can see how they might want to only advance one at a time, and hence do excavator on 28nm and "excavator+" on 20nm. Either that or carrizo is a richland-like follow on to kaveri with DDR4.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> You do realize that with the release date of Excavator being what it is and the time that guy stopped working for AMD that the process node can completely change as well as much of the design, right? It honestly looks more like he was involved in Steamroller design and maybe some very basic, very early thought process on Excavator and nothing else. That is no confirmation about the design being 28nm, especially since AMD will be having 20nm and 14nm designs out in the same time frame as the Excavator release
> 
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131017231002_AMD_to_Tape_Out_First_20nm_14nm_FinFET_Chips_Within_Next_Two_Quarters.html
> 
> It has to do with both graphics and low power processor cores, but that doesnt mean we wont see other designs than just those two types on some new node. It also means AMD is fully capable and will have designed products for these small process nodes so they wont be stuck in 28nm on all fronts. We also know AMD plans to move all products away from SoI and into Bulk, which means that 20nm TSMC node might be usable for CPUs as well


Exactly the points I made but you expanded on it with useful details. Thanks. Just because he knows these engineers profiles on linkedin does not prove that such discussion even took place. His hot links prove absolutely nothing.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Yes, and we have a worldwide product release a year later in Q4 2013. So if AMD tapes out 20nm and 14nm designs within 3-6 months from now that is a year or more before we are likely to see Excavator.


Which is some time in 2015.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> @EniGma1987
> 
> Tape outs != Release.
> 
> Steamroller/Kaveri taped out in late Q3 2012 to early Q4 2012.


until then

it's vaportroller.

lol jk


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Doing a new design on a new process node has been problematic for AMD in the past. I can see how they might want to only advance one at a time, and hence do excavator on 28nm and "excavator+" on 20nm. Either that or carrizo is a richland-like follow on to kaveri with DDR4.


You can see, We all can see, but that doesn't make it so. There are many logical projections that can be made and all but one of these logical projections will never happen. It is merely speculation unless he has emails or had coversation with somebody on the Excavator design team , which I highly doubt. Does it mean his speculation is definitely wrong? No. We don't know at this point and it is possible today AMD is not sure. That decision will be made prior to tape out and that is all we know.


----------



## Deadboy90

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Seronx is blowing hot air now. There has been no release from AMD of any kind that Excavator will be on .28nm. Now it may come to that, but that does not give him the right to put it out there as fact. You have done this before. When will you learn your lesson?? Source please!!!


Wasn't Steamroller supposed to be 28nm?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Deadboy90*
> 
> Wasn't Steamroller supposed to be 28nm?


Yes. That does not necessarily mean excavator would be on the same node that AMD wants to shrink as quickly as possible.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Only AMD knows what node EX will be on. Only they know if there will be any refreshes for Kaveri and Carrizo. Until we get anything more from AMD (such as roadmaps) I don't see any point in entertaining crystal-balling.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Nothing fundamentaly wrong with getting EX on 28nm and then getting a die shrink. I would also like to hear any post-EX big core plans by AMD.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Nothing fundamentaly wrong with getting EX on 28nm and then getting a die shrink. I would also like to hear any post-EX big core plans by AMD.


It is economically a loser. The smaller process I still believe is AMD's goal. Perhaps the Global Foundry which is now on schedule for .20-22nm process for sometime in 2015 will be able to keep its ship righted and then excavator will release on the smaller node. That would be mean excavator would have plenty of space for additional cores, greater power savings and a more competitive product against the I5's and the lesser I7's, not just the I3's. Time will tell.


----------



## MrJava

I'd honestly be more than happy if the follow on to Kaveri was simply Kaveri with dual (or quad) channel DDR4.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'd honestly be more than happy if the follow on to Kaveri was simply Kaveri with dual (or quad) channel DDR4.


Such low expectations.


----------



## re73

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Such low expectations.


The best thing with low expectations is that you usually get surprised


----------



## Konbad

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/10/25/amd-value-bundle-buy-games2c-get-a-processor-for-2410.aspx

definitely trying to move as much stock as possible


----------



## NaroonGTX

I noticed this a few days ago when browsing chips out of boredom. One of the marketing images had a throwback to the original FX processors from the A64 days -- I got all warm and fuzzy inside.









I've also noticed that the 6800k has quietly had its price reduced by $10... It was $139.99 on both Newegg and Amazon last I checked.


----------



## maarten12100

Kaveri isn't that far away it makes me feel good








Even though I'm well suited myself already


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/10/25/amd-value-bundle-buy-games2c-get-a-processor-for-2410.aspx
> 
> definitely trying to move as much stock as possible


I don't know about that. It could be un-used bundle sales or something that AMD already purchased and needs to unload anyways.

Between the "AMD is done with big cores!" crowd and the "AMD is just waiting for big cores!" crowd, I don't think there's a single person who would expect AMD to be clearing stock on their FX CPUs.

I really don't know what to make of it. Maybe it's just a promo to sell more FX? Maybe it's just to clear APUs out and they don't want to stop people from going FX with dGPU?

I have no idea. I do know I'd be completely floored if AMD was clearing inventory of FX chips and was about to release something new. Heck, I think A LOT of people and companies would be floored if AMD just released an AM3+ SR FX in the next few months. Specially because it makes absolutely no sense in regards to what AMD has been announcing or doing.

Then again everyone was kind of blindsided by 290x and the fact that Nvidia is left cobbling together some sort of part that it wants to be competitive out of GK110 makes me think that AMD has been doing some things completely under the radar from the public and AMD's competition.


----------



## Kuivamaa

If they were bundled with FX units we might had a case, but they are pushing them with their whole lineup. Then again they may are about to launch a revised PD FX line.


----------



## Konbad

trying to move as much as possible as it is worded many CPU sales as possible or trying to clear out codes as you say.. cant wait for 3rd party cards for the 290x should perform alot better if its not being throttled due to heat


----------



## Caldeio

With the apu/amd event coming up, and these new games and bundle packages it's looking more and more likely that there will be all new stuff soon.

I honestly think AMD is about to do something big. Im thinking 8 core steamroller, with 30-40% better ipc to put it about 3-4770k levels. New chipset. 100w tdp for highend and 65 for mid range.

desktop apus 65tdp for highend and 35 for low end


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> and the fact that Nvidia is left cobbling together some sort of part that it wants to be competitive out of GK110 makes me think that AMD has been doing some things completely under the radar from the public and AMD's competition.


Nvidia is only left trying to come up with something quick because they got screwed by bad luck. Hynix had that fire which slowed production a bit on the vram Nvidia uses and TSMC has been having trouble getting their 20nm production working well. These caused Nvidia to delay the launch of Maxwell from right about now until the middle of next year.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Caldeio*
> 
> I honestly think AMD is about to do something big. Im thinking 8 core steamroller, with 30-40% better ipc to put it about 3-4770k levels. New chipset. 100w tdp for highend and 65 for mid range.
> 
> desktop apus 65tdp for highend and 35 for low end


We can dream cant we?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Kaveri will be 95W top-end models with 65W lower models. Carrizo will be 65W top models and 45W lower models.

There won't be any AM4 or anything since AMD canned the 1090FX platform quite some time ago. They've also said that they will be sticking with FM2(+) for now and both Kaveri and Carrizo will be on FM2+, so...


----------



## MacLeod

What makes me nervous is that AMD has gone all quiet again like they did with Bulldozer and we all now know why. They were a little more open with Piledriver because it is a pretty good chip. Now we've got Steamroller and we're getting the silent treatment again and nobody knows anything. Ive just done about an hours worth of Googling and its looking more and more like not only is Steamroller NOT going to be AM3+ but there's a chance itll be APU only. All total speculation I know but I cant find anything encouraging. Its a little frustrating. I wish theyd give us a little something and dont understand why they wont. I mean Im dying for a CPU upgrade and dont have a clue what to do. Dont want to drop $150 for a small upgrade to Piledriver, cant find any information on Steamroller and maybe I should just ditch it and 10 years of AMD fanboyism and just hold my nose and go with a 4670K. Id pull my hair out if I had any.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> What makes me nervous is that AMD has gone all quiet again like they did with Bulldozer and we all now know why. They were a little more open with Piledriver because it is a pretty good chip. Now we've got Steamroller and we're getting the silent treatment again and nobody knows anything. Ive just done about an hours worth of Googling and its looking more and more like not only is Steamroller NOT going to be AM3+ but there's a chance itll be APU only. All total speculation I know but I cant find anything encouraging. Its a little frustrating. I wish theyd give us a little something and dont understand why they wont. I mean Im dying for a CPU upgrade and dont have a clue what to do. Dont want to drop $150 for a small upgrade to Piledriver, cant find any information on Steamroller and maybe I should just ditch it and 10 years of AMD fanboyism and just hold my nose and go IB-E. Id pull my hair out if I had any.


Your take on things is totally wrong. AMD has a history of being low-key on pre-announcements until shortly before the product introduction. At the APU conference on November 11-13 in 2 weeks there will be major information released about Steamroller Kaveri and a road map for apu and cpu releases through 2015. Your conspiracy theories have no basis in fact.Chill and wait until the 11-12th.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I'm seriously considering just putting the message that the APU conference and roadmaps will reveal all in my sig. I'm tired of repeating it countless times. I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned already by me and others on various pages in all the Steamroller-related threads by now. Sorry if I come across as harsh, but it just gets tiring repeating the same thing over and over.


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Your take on things is totally wrong. AMD has a history of being low-key on pre-announcements until shortly before the product introduction. At the APU conference on November 11-13 in 2 weeks there will be major information released about Steamroller Kaveri and a road map for apu and cpu releases through 2015. Your conspiracy theories have no basis in fact.Chill and wait until the 11-12th.


What conspiracy theories? I dont have any theories. Im frustrated at the total lack of any information at all. About the only thing out there right now are more and more rumors of Steamroller not being AM3+ and now there are fresher rumors of there not being anything but APU's coming out.

I didnt know about that conference so hopefully theyll give out some info and maybe an up to date road map that shows the non-APU desktop processors on it. Id just like a ballpark or a release date and a yes or no if its going to be AM3+ or not. I dont think thats unreasonable to want or to understand why its getting frustrating that after outright confirmations of SR on AM3+ last year, now we're getting these "leaks" that AM3+ dies with Piledriver.

Seems like all we do as AMD fans is "just wait a little longer til....."
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I'm seriously considering just putting the message that the APU conference and roadmaps will reveal all in my sig. I'm tired of repeating it countless times. I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned already by me and others on various pages in all the Steamroller-related threads by now. Sorry if I come across as harsh, but it just gets tiring repeating the same thing over and over.


There are 1200 posts in this thread. Sorry if I dont keep up with this thread daily and missed the big conference.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> What conspiracy theories? I dont have any theories. Im frustrated at the total lack of any information at all. About the only thing out there right now are more and more rumors of Steamroller not being AM3+ and now there are fresher rumors of there not being anything but APU's coming out.
> 
> I didnt know about that conference so hopefully theyll give out some info and maybe an up to date road map that shows the non-APU desktop processors on it. Id just like a ballpark or a release date and a yes or no if its going to be AM3+ or not. I dont think thats unreasonable to want or to understand why its getting frustrating that after outright confirmations of SR on AM3+ last year, now we're getting these "leaks" that AM3+ dies with Piledriver.
> 
> Seems like all we do as AMD fans is "just wait a little longer til....."
> There are 1200 posts in this thread. Sorry if I dont keep up with this thread daily and missed the big conference.


all I have to say is that pd rumors came out that it was cancelled then the apus only bit... this is conjucture without looking at the track history.. ya bd was a flop but pd was an upgrade.. trinity came out roughly 6 months before vishera. .. im pretty sure we will see something but the doom and gloom based on no facts is what is getting old.. not you per se but in general

just because amd hasnt said anything doesnt mean that it wont happen.


----------



## bbond007

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> trying to move as much as possible as it is worded many CPU sales as possible or trying to clear out codes as you say.. cant wait for 3rd party cards for the 290x should perform alot better if its not being throttled due to heat


why do you think they named it 290x? Because that's how many watts of power it uses?


----------



## MrJava

The other two roadmaps which were released only showed 2014. If the client roadmap is the same, then we already know what it looks like.
- Kaveri
- Beema
- Mullins
- Piledriver refresh ??
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Your take on things is totally wrong. AMD has a history of being low-key on pre-announcements until shortly before the product introduction. At the APU conference on November 11-13 in 2 weeks there will be major information released about Steamroller Kaveri and a road map for apu and cpu releases through 2015. Your conspiracy theories have no basis in fact.Chill and wait until the 11-12th.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Can't wait to see the desktop roadmap and have it say that Piledriver will once again remain the "Performance" segment for all of 2014.


----------



## Seronx

Kaveri -> Carrizo
Beema -> Nolan
Mullins -> idc
Warsaw -> Steamroller+ or Excavator+ on 20nm ETSOI. ***

*** - Server parts might have a larger time gap before newer generation show up. So, it might not be until 2016 that we actually see the successor of Warsaw with the new cores.


----------



## Kuivamaa

One indication that AM3+ might not see SR is the apparent lack of new motherboard products. FM2+ got a G1.Sniper, as for AM3+ crickets...


----------



## NaroonGTX

All the MOBO manufacs didn't seem to care too much about AM3+. It's interesting that we didn't see many high-end boards until FM2+ popped up. I wonder if we will see a new gaming platform based on FM2+ since we've gotten these high-end boards. It'll be interesting to see Kaveri's Xfire capabilities.


----------



## Kuivamaa

True but we did get Sabertooth/ROG/UD5-7/Fatal1ty and the such originally. I understand that these were 2011 models and since then intel came with two more top chipsets (Z77/Z87) but even X79 got a refresh with IB-E.


----------



## NaroonGTX

True. I would like to see some Fatal1ty FM2+ gear. I'm actually shocked we haven't seen any Fatal1ty MOBO's yet. A fatal1ty-branded mini-ITX MOBO would be super-popular for LAN-party builders and such.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Yeah. With AM3+ future unsure and FM2+ getting no octocores there is little incentive for motherboard manufacturers to bring AMD editions of their best stuff.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Yeah. With AM3+ future unsure and FM2+ getting no octocores there is little incentive for motherboard manufacturers to bring AMD editions of their best stuff.


I think the new boards will be all fm2+ and we will see a board refresh maybe when fx sr comes out on am3+... going by history that is what happened between bd and pd.. wouldnt be much more to do it from pd to sr


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Caldeio*
> 
> With the apu/amd event coming up, and these new games and bundle packages it's looking more and more likely that there will be all new stuff soon.
> 
> I honestly think AMD is about to do something big. Im thinking 8 core steamroller, with 30-40% better ipc to put it about 3-4770k levels. New chipset. 100w tdp for highend and 65 for mid range.
> 
> desktop apus 65tdp for highend and 35 for low end


30-40% would put it above 4770k but thats not a bad thing
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Nvidia is only left trying to come up with something quick because they got screwed by bad luck. Hynix had that fire which slowed production a bit on the vram Nvidia uses and TSMC has been having trouble getting their 20nm production working well. These caused Nvidia to delay the launch of Maxwell from right about now until the middle of next year.
> We can dream cant we?


is TSMC had 20nm ready 290x would be 20nm now nvidia might be moving to the node first then AMD might strike back its put them out of sync.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Yeah. With AM3+ future unsure and FM2+ getting no octocores there is little incentive for motherboard manufacturers to bring AMD editions of their best stuff.


why no octocores on FM2+ if they shrink the die on 8 core chips i cant see why they wont work on FM2+

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I think the new boards will be all fm2+ and we will see a board refresh maybe when fx sr comes out on am3+... going by history that is what happened between bd and pd.. wouldnt be much more to do it from pd to sr


Sigh AM3+ needs to die really.. if they do release it on Am3+ without a new chipset with new features its not even worth bothering


----------



## cdoublejj

no AM3+ doesn't need to die , i JUST got my board and home hoping steamroller won't be slower than Phenom 2 at single threaded performance and will have 8 full/real cores.

AMD is pretty good about being backwards compat, hence why in vested in an AM3+ board.

EDIT: if foxconn didn't suck so muhc i'd probably be using my foxconn destroyer.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> 30-40% would put it above 4770k but thats not a bad thing
> is TSMC had 20nm ready 290x would be 20nm now nvidia might be moving to the node first then AMD might strike back its put them out of sync.
> why no octocores on FM2+ if they shrink the die on 8 core chips i cant see why they wont work on FM2+
> Sigh AM3+ needs to die really.. if they do release it on Am3+ without a new chipset with new features its not even worth bothering


why die.. only things that would help is pcie3 and more native usb 3.0... both of which arent really being utilized.. and its not a socket but the chip set. Pretty sure your comment is without any fact or proof. There is nothing wrong with the socket for 1 more chip


----------



## MrJava

Actually PCIe 3.0 (along with IOMMU v2.0+) is key to HSA with discrete GPUs. I don't think R9 290X crossfire has been tested with PCIe 2.0 yet, but it probably takes a massive perf. hit due to the halved bandwidth.

It just doesn't make sense that AMD would release an eight-core steamroller on AM3+ without also releasing the corresponding chips on C32 and G34 where they have much larger margins.
All this being said with more multithreaded games on the horizon, people on a budget would definitely have good reason to buy a sub-$200 eight core piledriver and an AM3+ board. Lots of buyers don't want to overclock and would see value in refreshed CPUs with higher stock clocks and better turbo.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> why die.. only things that would help is pcie3 and more native usb 3.0... both of which arent really being utilized.. and its not a socket but the chip set. Pretty sure your comment is without any fact or proof. There is nothing wrong with the socket for 1 more chip


----------



## Kuivamaa

I said no octocores for FM2+ because there are nowhere to be found on roadmaps, we will know for sure in a few weeks. Single core performance is one thing and ipc is another, btw.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I said no octocores for FM2+ because there are nowhere to be found on roadmaps, we will know for sure in a few weeks. Single core performance is one thing and ipc is another, btw.


octocores for fm2+ is a ways off which you are right.. wonder though if they will release a hexcore like the athlon 750 that was released on fm2


----------



## kapulek

Guys Kaveri is coming









http://www.computerbase.de/news/2013-10/amds-kaveri-vorstellung-am-5.-dezember-erwartet/


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> Guys Kaveri is coming
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.computerbase.de/news/2013-10/amds-kaveri-vorstellung-am-5.-dezember-erwartet/


sweet deal!! Guess I need to start savin my monies haha.. been needing to build a htpc


----------



## SoloCamo

So any more word if this will hit AM3+? SR that is...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> Guys Kaveri is coming
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.computerbase.de/news/2013-10/amds-kaveri-vorstellung-am-5.-dezember-erwartet/



presents


----------



## Seronx

Digitimes was right...nice.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

ASUS top board so far for FM2+ has a 6+2 phase VRM.. Looks like the unified socket is getting closer..

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/A88XPRO/#specifications

I think that Kavari will show great strides to this but still not there just yet..

Native 2133 ram support.. up to 64GB

http://www.asus.com/microsite/2013/MB/kaveri/

For those that are looking at the the "great thing that amd is doing getting PCIe 3.0" Look at the specifications.. IT really is not any different than PCIe 2.0 ([email protected] 8x PCIe 3) which is equal to [email protected] 16x PCIe 2.... I'm sure that later on boards will have better support but that does not really say much for the excuse that we need to drop AM3+ right now cause of PCIe 3.0 support

Does have 2x more USB 3.0 which is nice (2 onboard plugs 2 back panel)

I am going to keep looking at what boards come out.. but at the looks of it FM2+ is almost on par with AM3+ due to the Chipsets.. We most likely wont see any major improvements other than the beginning of HSA with Kavari

Looks like the sniper series is just below the ASUS Pro in comparison of features
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4683#ov


----------



## NaroonGTX

Check out the other slide.



"SteamrollerB cores" = bdver3b confirmed.

"Console-class performance" = lolwat? So it really will be somewhere around X1 or PS4 graphics performance? Audio co-processor on-die similar to PS4 (and maybe X1, don't remember). TrueAudio support?

Kaveri will be worth the wait.


----------



## maarten12100

Seems like the space for 2 extra modules is definitely there so it might happen.

A more important thing to note is the ultra thin part of the slide which indicates laptops and cheap all in ones


----------



## Kuivamaa

Console class gaming, are they sure their marketing department can't come up with a better line? Have you noticed it includes a die-shot? Probably not worth analyzing ,it could be whatever.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> "SteamrollerB cores" = bdver3b confirmed.


I'm sure the slide would have mentioned doubled floating point throughput if it was there.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Console class gaming, are they sure their marketing department can't come up with a better line? Have you noticed it includes a die-shot? Probably not worth analyzing ,it could be whatever.


It says "console class *gaming audio* and *movie theater surround processing*" referring to the integrated TrueAudio DSPs. Maybe they should change the line since its being misinterpreted.
I think the die shot is copy-pasted from the trinity slide deck.


----------



## Kuivamaa

You're right about audio part. Yawn







Configurable TDP, what is that?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Just double-checked, yeah it says "console-class *gaming audio*". The way the stuff is written is somewhat odd, I don't think they would mention stuff like the FPU being beefed up and such as this seems geared towards mainstream people taking a gander at what new "features" there will be. I guess we will know the full extent of the SR revision in a couple weeks' time.

I don't think that is a Kaveri die-shot, it looks the same as the Trinity/Richland die-shot.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'm sure the slide would have mentioned doubled floating point throughput if it was there.
> It says "console class *gaming audio* and *movie theater surround processing*" referring to the integrated TrueAudio DSPs. Maybe they should change the line since its being misinterpreted.
> I think the die shot is copy-pasted from the trinity slide deck.


You sir are correct about the die shot


----------



## iRUSH

Subscribing


----------



## MrJava

Well maybe, but in that case the marketeers wouldn't have to stretch too far to say "double the CPU performance!" or some equivalent claim.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Just double-checked, yeah it says "console-class *gaming audio*". The way the stuff is written is somewhat odd, I don't think they would mention stuff like the FPU being beefed up and such as this seems geared towards mainstream people taking a gander at what new "features" there will be. I guess we will know the full extent of the SR revision in a couple weeks' time.
> 
> I don't think that is a Kaveri die-shot, it looks the same as the Trinity/Richland die-shot.


User configurable TDP via BIOS (i.e. setting some limit for the CPU and turbo system to work under) is actually a pretty cool feature.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> You're right about audio part. Yawn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Configurable TDP, what is that?


----------



## nitrubbb

subbing.

still hoping they release in december


----------



## MrJava

It also seems like Kaveri will support SATA Express.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Digitimes was right...nice.


You really believe that article includanything just now released by AMD. Sorry that document is at least a month old. I do not believe it is anything but a restatement of what has been official from AMD. This is not the road map for 2014, 2015. That is quite obvious. Seronx please keep your head buried in the sand. You do much better when you don't seek vindication for unsupported claims.


----------



## nitrubbb

I really hope that the latest rumor about february release is for mobile not desktop


----------



## MrJava

I don't think it makes a massive difference whether or not kaveri is in consumers' hands now or 4 months from now. Its going to be competing with haswell and broadwell systems in either case.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You really believe that article includanything just now released by AMD. Sorry that document is at least a month old. I do not believe it is anything but a restatement of what has been official from AMD. This is not the road map for 2014, 2015. That is quite obvious. Seronx please keep your head buried in the sand. You do much better when you don't seek vindication for unsupported claims.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I don't think it makes a massive difference whether or not kaveri is in consumers' hands now or 4 months from now. Its going to be competing with haswell and broadwell systems in either case.


broadwell got delayed for a bit due to too many defects.. so thats a plus for amd..


----------



## jezzer

These just got to be 8 core apus.

I cant imagine that with Mantle (benificial for more than 4 cores), the 290x with big memory bus AMD wants people to use 990fx chipset.

It would not make any sense. 990fx lacks the features for 2014 high end hardware and there are no boards with newer chipsets.

2014 gonna be all about FM2+, mantle, amd next gen gfx so there need to be more than 4 cores on the apu, preferably on launch. It has to be.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> These just got to be 8 core apus.
> 
> I cant imagine that with Mantle (benificial for more than 4 cores), the 290x with big memory bus AMD wants people to use 990fx chipset.
> 
> It would not make any sense. 990fx lacks the features for 2014 high end hardware and there are no boards with newer chipsets.
> 
> 2014 gonna be all about FM2+, mantle, amd next gen gfx so there need to be more than 4 cores on the apu, preferably on launch. It has to be.


If it has 4 modules / 8 cores it wont be an APU since there would be no space for the gpu (unless you talk about Jaguar cores in a thread about steamroller)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, 4 module APU is currently out of the question. They could make 4 module chips with L2 and possibly L3 cache on the socket, but it would be a totally different die (which isn't bad, but would cost R&D funds). They could cut down on die-size and save die space while increasing performance if they hand-design it rather than automated design again. I don't know if they're still doing that or not (automated designs.)


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> If it has 4 modules / 8 cores it wont be an APU since there would be no space for the gpu (unless you talk about Jaguar cores in a thread about steamroller)


AMD had release candidate CPUs for a "Komodo" 10-core processor with 10MB of L3 cache using a 32nm process node. It is fully possible to build that because AMD proved it, they just didn't want to release that processor because AMD believed the market didn't need it. Seeing as that size of processor is do-able, an 8 core APU on a smaller process node is fully possible since the main part being taken up on FX processors is from L3 cache. On an APU that L3 cache doesnt exist and it is taken by GPU cores. The only reason we dont have greater than 4 core APUs now is just because AMD has preferred to stuff as big a GPU as possible into the processor instead of going for a smaller GPU and maximizing the CPU cores. On a 28nm node there would be enough space for 8 cores and a GPU the size we have now with Richland. So yes it is possible and there is space, we just probably wont see it because that doesnt seem to fall in with AMD's strategy for building an APU. And that is just with what we are used to for "profitable size" designs. AMD could always do something dumb and design a massive APU that is something closer to 500x500 and then they could fit something ******ed like 10 cores and an even bigger GPU. lol.


----------



## jezzer

Maybe they made it fit. Or have athlon versions without igpu and two extra modules instead.

Looking at at the big picture, at what AMD is doing. With Mantle and stuff. The memory bus of the 920x GFX.
It just would not make any sence to not have anything new for AM3+
And since there is no new Am3 chipset there won't be anything soon if u ask me.

So if its al about FM2+ there needs to be more than a 4 core apu alone. At least that's the idea i am getting.

I think all this is something they planned for a long time.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> These just got to be 8 core apus.
> 
> I cant imagine that with Mantle (benificial for more than 4 cores), the 290x with big memory bus AMD wants people to use 990fx chipset.
> 
> It would not make any sense. 990fx lacks the features for 2014 high end hardware and there are no boards with newer chipsets.
> 
> 2014 gonna be all about FM2+, mantle, amd next gen gfx so there need to be more than 4 cores on the apu, preferably on launch. It has to be.


besides full hsa support what features are lacking?

Show some facts....


----------



## NaroonGTX

There aren't any technical or physical reasons why a new chip can't come to AM3+. AM3+ as a chipset is fine for the most part, unless you want native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 (I think there was like, one AM3+ board that had PCIe 3.0). Besides that, it's possible for a new SR-based chip to arrive on the socket... The problem is that there's no evidence pointing towards such a processor existing.

Mantle is mostly about reducing API overheads and thus reducing CPU bottlenecks so you get more performance, and better performance with densely-threaded engines (beyond 4 cores). AMD probably theorized that with Mantle taking off (25+ Frostbite 3 games will support it, and we don't even know the other unannounced engines that will support it), they could ride out Piledriver even longer. We might see an AM3+ Vishera refresh utilizing the Piledriver+ cores we saw in Richland. Due to that, the weaker per-core performance of the current FX chips wouldn't hold back performance so much, so AMD probably sees it unnecessary to rush out a Steamroller-based replacement right now.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's just my theory.


----------



## jezzer

Dont get me wrong, not saying 990fx is too old to use. I am using z77 myself and it does very well, but it also lacks regarding buying a new system for example.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> Dont get me wrong, not saying 990fx is too old to use. I am using z77 myself and it does very well, but it also lacks regarding buying a new system for example.


not as much.. gfx cards arnt maxing pcie 2.. also the pcie 3 8x is the same as 2 @ 16x so that doesnt matter.. at that point you are then splitting hairs for usb 3.o when most devices dont use it... what features are lacking?

tthe saber gen 3 has rhe pcie 3. And doesnt show any performance boost


----------



## jezzer

Thats true but if i would buy a new system for 2014/15
I would buy as a GFX a 290x. Because i trust in Mantle i would like to have a 4+ core CPU with it. In that case FM2+ socket is a nogo nvt how much i like the memory support of it and pci 3.0 etc.
Since i am not going to put that 512bit pci 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot (note that this would be a new sys so a bit future proof in mind) AM3+ is a nogo also.
I end up buying i7 haswell.

This just one scenario. But with all this new tech there should be something more, there is something missing. Maybe i am wrong i dont know. In my case atm AMD holds all the cards except one. They have the ability to pull out that card and if they do i would have an all AMD system. And i bet i am not the only one thinking like that.

All i am saying is AMD is on to something but in the world of PC hardware, one decision is all it can take to win or loose.


----------



## jezzer

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> Thats true but if i would buy a new system for 2014/15
> I would buy as a GFX a 290x. Because i trust in Mantle i would like to have a 4+ core CPU with it. In that case FM2+ socket is a nogo nvt how much i like the memory support of it and pci 3.0 etc.
> Since i am not going to put that 512bit pci 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot (note that this would be a new sys so a bit future proof in mind) AM3+ is a nogo also.
> I end up buying i7 haswell.
> 
> This just one scenario. But with all this new tech there should be something more, there is something missing. Maybe i am wrong i dont know. In my case atm AMD holds all the cards except one. They have the ability to pull out that card and if they do i would have an all AMD system. And i bet i am not the only one thinking like that.
> 
> All i am saying is AMD is on to something but in the world of PC hardware, one decision is all it can take to win or loose.


Just hoping that missing card is up a sleeve for a nice surprise.. I would like that for AMD.

But since i started quoting myself it is time for bed. Cheers.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> Thats true but if i would buy a new system for 2014/15
> I would buy as a GFX a 290x. Because i trust in Mantle i would like to have a 4+ core CPU with it. In that case FM2+ socket is a nogo nvt how much i like the memory support of it and pci 3.0 etc.
> Since i am not going to put that 512bit pci 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot (note that this would be a new sys so a bit future proof in mind) AM3+ is a nogo also.
> I end up buying i7 haswell.
> 
> This just one scenario. But with all this new tech there should be something more, there is something missing. Maybe i am wrong i dont know. In my case atm AMD holds all the cards except one. They have the ability to pull out that card and if they do i would have an all AMD system. And i bet i am not the only one thinking like that.
> 
> All i am saying is AMD is on to something but in the world of PC hardware, one decision is all it can take to win or loose.


the 512 bus card word work the same weather it is on pcie 2 16x or pcie 3 8x which pcie 16x is not available on any form factor or chipset amd board. So that doesnt hold any value to it..

I get future proof. But cant future proff what isnt an option

more or less im in alignment with naroon. We just dont know yet what amd has planned. But the 990fx really doesnt have any limitations that would make it a bad choice.

The only reason why it is up in the air about sr fx on am3+ is that it has been soo quiet without any further acknowledgement. But I do stress that the same thing happened with pd.


----------



## Konbad

just reading, on another forum not confirmed that E9 290X can be crossfired using pcie 2.0 but there is a performance loss.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Did they mean it could be crossfired with Kaveri? Since all FM2+ MOBO's pretty much have PCIe 3.0 slots by default, why would any NOT use those slots to put the R9-290x in, lol?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jezzer*
> 
> These just got to be 8 core apus.
> 
> I cant imagine that with Mantle (benificial for more than 4 cores), the 290x with big memory bus AMD wants people to use 990fx chipset.
> 
> It would not make any sense. 990fx lacks the features for 2014 high end hardware and there are no boards with newer chipsets.
> 
> 2014 gonna be all about FM2+, mantle, amd next gen gfx so there need to be more than 4 cores on the apu, preferably on launch. It has to be.


Any new generation cpu for AM3+ would have to use the same chipset for FM2+ . That would allow for pci express 3.0 and other technologies like HSA not in the 990FX chipset.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> I really hope that the latest rumor about february release is for mobile not desktop


Not gonna happen. February for the retail channel for desktop, March and April for mobile steamroller solutions.


----------



## Konbad

for all we know A88X could be replaced with a "High End" chipset mid next year


----------



## MrJava

I think what he was getting at is that if you're crossfiring R9 290X's, then its best to put them in a Kaveri-based system.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Did they mean it could be crossfired with Kaveri? Since all FM2+ MOBO's pretty much have PCIe 3.0 slots by default, why would any NOT use those slots to put the R9-290x in, lol?


----------



## MrJava

Having two hops (northbridge to CPU) for PCIe traffic and only 25.6GB/s of HyperTransport bandwidth (shared by LAN, SATA etc.) bottlenecks. Kaveri has an on-die controller and dedicated lanes.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> tthe saber gen 3 has rhe pcie 3. And doesnt show any performance boost


----------



## NaroonGTX

D'oh! That makes sense. Though how will they convince people with Vishera 6/8-cores to switch to a Kaveri-based platform?


----------



## MrJava

By showing very convincing bar graphs?








Cancelling Komodo was a bad decision IMHO, I wouldn't be sitting here talking up Kaveri if you could get 10 cores, triple channel DDR3 and PCIe 3.0.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> D'oh! That makes sense. Though how will they convince people with Vishera 6/8-cores to switch to a Kaveri-based platform?


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> D'oh! That makes sense. Though how will they convince people with Vishera 6/8-cores to switch to a Kaveri-based platform?


HSA. or not. Don't really know. I am very interested in kaveri and I have an FX 8350. But I guess I am not the typical FXer or maybe I am. After I saw the 6800K and its OC potential and HSA chances then I got hooked.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Been like 20 pages since I last posted in here (50 per page) and I have to say... it's been hard keeping up with you lol. Anyway...
About enticing 6 and 8 core FX users to use their APU's has failed on me. I do things that actually use all of my cores, and furthermore, there is something about having the I/O and such shared in each module that doesn't sit well with me. With the quad core chips, the cores start getting in the way of each other. With the my 8 core, I can run 4x threaded apps without the modules bickering.


----------



## SoloCamo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Been like 20 pages since I last posted in here (50 per page) and I have to say... it's been hard keeping up with you lol. Anyway...
> About enticing 6 and 8 core FX users to use their APU's has failed on me. I do things that actually use all of my cores, and furthermore, there is something about having the I/O and such shared in each module that doesn't sit well with me. With the quad core chips, the cores start getting in the way of each other. With the my 8 core, I can run 4x threaded apps without the modules bickering.


Agreed... I'm going to be really dissapointed if SR doesn't come to AM3+... FM2 feels like a downgrade considering the current cpu options...


----------



## btupsx

Just about 2 more weeks ladies and gents







I have the hopeful feeling that AMD is going to pleasantly surprise us, a la R9 290X.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Having two hops (northbridge to CPU) for PCIe traffic and only 25.6GB/s of HyperTransport bandwidth (shared by LAN, SATA etc.) bottlenecks. Kaveri has an on-die controller and dedicated lanes.


I do understand that point when you put it in comparison of Crossfire for the cards.. Mainly if you already own the am3+ board then not need to buy an new board and chip to support it though until you need the more oomf which by then a new APU will be out.

Also I was just answering the question of which AM3+ board had the PCIe 3.0...


----------



## MrJava

What do you mean by this?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Been like 20 pages since I last posted in here (50 per page) and I have to say... it's been hard keeping up with you lol. Anyway...
> About enticing 6 and 8 core FX users to use their APU's has failed on me. I do things that actually use all of my cores, and furthermore, there is something about having the *I/O and such shared in each module that doesn't sit well with me*. With the quad core chips, the cores start getting in the way of each other. With the my 8 core, I can run 4x threaded apps without the modules bickering.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> What do you mean by this?


I've been without internet for a bit and have been staying away from the more technical threads, so you will have to forgive me.

It's the fetch/decoder stuff. Each module has one the the two cores have to share. When the two cores inside are both active, it receives a bottleneck. This is why the FX chips do not have a full 8x efficiency when all 8 cores are being used (or if two within same module are).


----------



## NaroonGTX

That's not because of the I/O stuff but because of the shared decoder (it's too narrow). SR fixes this by giving both of the INT units its own independent decoder. The fetch is still shared.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> By showing very convincing bar graphs?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cancelling Komodo was a bad decision IMHO, I wouldn't be sitting here talking up Kaveri if you could get 10 cores, triple channel DDR3 and PCIe 3.0.


Even If top A10 absolutely matches an i5-3570k I am still going FX-8350.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Even If top A10 absolutely matches an i5-3570k I am still going FX-8350.


why so?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Because I have use for 8 threads obviously? Octocores have higher ipc than quad intels on fully multithreaded scenarios as well.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Because I have use for 8 threads obviously? Octocores have higher ipc than quad intels on fully multithreaded scenarios as well.


hehe this


----------



## NaroonGTX

I would be in you guys' boat if I did lots of work with heavily-threaded apps, lol. The main CPU-intensive tasks I do on my PC are emulation, so all I desire is higher single-threaded perf and a quad-core Kaveri will give me that.


----------



## Alastair

I have to agree with a lot of the above posts. With 290x and its bandwidth and Mantle games that will support more than 4 cores it would not make sense for AMD to not release an enthusiast 6-8 core part to capitalize on the success that this could bring. So I think this is what is possible.

I think AMD is keeping their lips sealed shut to avoid another Bulldozer hype and fail fiasco again. Just because we as the end consumer have not heard anything does not mean that AMD is not developing something.

So with that in mind I have some scenarios that have come to mind. 990FX although old is by no means incapable. It can support 2 full PCI-E 2.0 at 16x which = PCI-E 3.0 at 8x. But we know that even with current GFX we are not saturating 2.0. HOWEVER we might saturate 2.0 if SLI and CFX loose the bridges and migrate to PCI-E lanes. Ok so 990FX gets refreshed for a hypothetical SR FX chip. What is stopping Mobo manufactures from adding nVidia NF200 chips to add a few more PCI-E lanes so that you can run triple or quad fire at 16x? So my scenarios are as follows:

Scenario 1: 990FX refresh with AM3+ and SR FX. Motherboard makers support 3.0 like Saberkitty GEN3 or add NF 200 chips to increase PCI-E lanes.
Scenario 2: 990FX and AM3+ decommissioned. Possible 88FX chipset for FM2+ We already have 88x so I am basing on the same lines of 990x and 990FX. AMD releases SR based CPU on FM2+ WITHOUT I-GPU to save space for more modules.


----------



## MrJava

I think many people are not understanding how PCIe works on the 990FX (and previous) platforms. Even though the chipset provides 4 x16 PCIe 2.0 lanes, the link between the chipset and the CPU is a single HT 3 link which provides less than half the bandwidth (25.6GB/s) of all of the lanes combined. It is the very definition of a bottleneck.

Not to mention that PCIe already has relatively high latency. An additional hop (the chipset) for packets between the CPU and GPU makes latency even worse.

FM2+ is superior in this regard because is 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes provided by an on-die controller - thats a full 32GB/s of bandwidth and as low latency for PCIe traffic as the standard will allow. These lanes are dedicated for graphics, and there are additional lanes for SSDs and connections to the chipset for LAN,SATA etc. On AM3+, the HT link bandwidth is used for all system I/O.

In short AMD does this for the same reason that they added the on-die memory controller.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> I have to agree with a lot of the above posts. With 290x and its bandwidth and Mantle games that will support more than 4 cores it would not make sense for AMD to not release an enthusiast 6-8 core part to capitalize on the success that this could bring. So I think this is what is possible.
> 
> I think AMD is keeping their lips sealed shut to avoid another Bulldozer hype and fail fiasco again. Just because we as the end consumer have not heard anything does not mean that AMD is not developing something.
> 
> So with that in mind I have some scenarios that have come to mind. 990FX although old is by no means incapable. It can support 2 full PCI-E 2.0 at 16x which = PCI-E 3.0 at 8x. But we know that even with current GFX we are not saturating 2.0. HOWEVER we might saturate 2.0 if SLI and CFX loose the bridges and migrate to PCI-E lanes. Ok so 990FX gets refreshed for a hypothetical SR FX chip. What is stopping Mobo manufactures from adding nVidia NF200 chips to add a few more PCI-E lanes so that you can run triple or quad fire at 16x? So my scenarios are as follows:
> 
> Scenario 1: 990FX refresh with AM3+ and SR FX. Motherboard makers support 3.0 like Saberkitty GEN3 or add NF 200 chips to increase PCI-E lanes.
> Scenario 2: 990FX and AM3+ decommissioned. Possible 88FX chipset for FM2+ We already have 88x so I am basing on the same lines of 990x and 990FX. AMD releases SR based CPU on FM2+ WITHOUT I-GPU to save space for more modules.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Even If top A10 absolutely matches an i5-3570k I am still going FX-8350.[/quote
> 
> No need to worry about that, I can assure you that the top steamroller 4 core APU will not equal a I5 3570k in multi-threaded performance and will be a smidgeon short of equaling it in single thread performance. Only AFTERwide-spread adoption of HSA (2-3 years) will that apu really shine.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I think many people are not understanding how PCIe works on the 990FX (and previous) platforms. Even though the chipset provides 4 x16 PCIe 2.0 lanes, the link between the chipset and the CPU is a single HT 3 link which provides less than half the bandwidth (25.6GB/s) of all of the lanes combined. It is the very definition of a bottleneck.
> 
> Not to mention that PCIe already has relatively high latency. An additional hop (the chipset) for packets between the CPU and GPU makes latency even worse.
> 
> FM2+ is superior in this regard because is 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes provided by an on-die controller - thats a full 32GB/s of bandwidth and as low latency for PCIe traffic as the standard will allow. These lanes are dedicated for graphics, and there are additional lanes for SSDs and connections to the chipset for LAN,SATA etc. On AM3+, the HT link bandwidth is used for all system I/O.
> 
> In short AMD does this for the same reason that they added the on-die memory controller.


I said the A88X chipset can be used on AM3+ and I stick to that. That would eliminate that issue on AM3+ so no need to harp on why you would need to switch to FM2+ right away. Of course you would need a new motherboard , so that negates the benefit for AM3+ to a large extent.


----------



## MrJava

Uh, no it wouldn't. The A88X chipset does not handle the connection between CPU and GPU, there is a direct connection between CPU and GPU because of the on-die PCIe controller.
The A88X chipset only handles LAN, SATA and USB and is connected to the CPU via a separate x4 PCIe interface.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I said the A88X chipset can be used on AM3+ and I stick to that. *That would eliminate that issue on AM3+* so no need to harp on why you would need to switch to FM2+ right away. Of course you would need a new motherboard , so that negates the benefit for AM3+ to a large extent.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I think many people are not understanding how PCIe works on the 990FX (and previous) platforms. Even though the chipset provides 4 x16 PCIe 2.0 lanes, the link between the chipset and the CPU is a single HT 3 link which provides less than half the bandwidth (25.6GB/s) of all of the lanes combined. It is the very definition of a bottleneck.
> 
> Not to mention that PCIe already has relatively high latency. An additional hop (the chipset) for packets between the CPU and GPU makes latency even worse.
> 
> FM2+ is superior in this regard because is 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes provided by an on-die controller - thats a full 32GB/s of bandwidth and as low latency for PCIe traffic as the standard will allow. These lanes are dedicated for graphics, and there are additional lanes for SSDs and connections to the chipset for LAN,SATA etc. On AM3+, the HT link bandwidth is used for all system I/O.
> 
> In short AMD does this for the same reason that they added the on-die memory controller.


Well I guess we are back to this discussion again









Here is the thing though, the current implementation of 990FX platform with its HT3.1 controller and PCI-E lanes *IS* inadequate. This however can be fully fixed if a new CPU were released for the platform so the argument about not using AM3+ is completely invalid. The new CPU *could* have PCI-E 3.0 lanes on-die, but it still wouldnt need it. Those PCI-E lanes take up a decent bit of space, a bit more than HTT IO would. Furthermore if AMD were to actually use the HT links for the PCI-E traffic then it would take no additional space because there are already four 16-bit HT 3.1 controllers on die. All AMD has to do is increase these to 32-bit (which is the same as integrating PCI-E controllers anyway so no matter what your view this change in die space would already be taking place) and the HT 3.1 lanes would have more bandwidth than the PCI-E 3.0 lanes would. There is no need for a hop to northbridge even with no PCI-E controllers at all, the HT controller is directly map-able to PCI-E addresses. A 32-bit HT IO controller is equivalent in size and ability to a 32-bit x16 PCI-E 3.0 controller, however the HT link has lower latency and more bandwidth. Using the same HT links, only increased to 32-bit bus, would alleviate all bandwidth issues on the current 990FX platform, have directly on-die integrated "PCI-E" only with better performance, and still have room left over for a southbridge connection. AMD also already uses four separate HT link controllers which means this would be the equivalent of 64 PCI-E 3.0 lanes on-die. It also allows AMD to not change their server designs and lets the new CPUs be drop in compatible to current platforms because it still uses HT links so the inter CPU communication would be done the same on multi-CPU systems. There isnt a single drawback to this design other than the increased die space, but that doesn't matter cause even if HT links were dropped the same die space would be taken by the PCI-E links.

For easy reference:
A 32-bit HT link has 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth.
32-bit 16 lane PCI-E 3.0 has 31.5GB/s of bandwidth

And before anyone asks, yes a HT link can be split up exactly the same for smaller "lanes" just like PCI-E can and is still directly map-able.


----------



## MrJava

1. But then you would still need a chipset to translate between HT (one protocol) and PCIe (another) which adds latency.
2. C32 uses 1200+ pins for 2 HT 3.1 Links. G34 uses 1900+ pins for 4 HT 3.1 links. AM3+ is not sufficient for this amount of I/O, otherwise it would've been enabled from the start.

So if you want to fix any of the problems of the current platform, you need a new socket and new motherboard. Does that sound like FM2+ or the hypothetical FM3 to anyone.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> 1. But then you would still need a chipset to translate between HT (one protocol) and PCIe (another) which adds latency.
> 2. C32 uses 1200+ pins for 2 HT 3.1 Links. G34 uses 1900+ pins for 4 HT 3.1 links. AM3+ is not sufficient for this amount of I/O, otherwise it would've been enabled from the start.
> 
> So if you want to fix any of the problems of the current platform, you need a new socket and new motherboard. Does that sound like FM2+ or the hypothetical FM3 to anyone.


I suppose your right on that second part. Although just how many more pins are needed only AMD would know. It has to be significant at least because otherwise each socket wouldn't increase so drastically. I would like to throw another thought out there though going off what you just brought up, the same situation is really true for either AM3+ or FM2+ here. FM2 has even less pins, so although you couldnt use 4 full HT links, you also wouldnt be able to use a huge number of on-die PCI-E links. If FM2+ has room for 16 on-die lanes then AM3+ would be able to do just as many and possibly a bit more because it has more pins. But your right on the 4 full links, definitely not enough pins for that.

Why would you need a chipset to translate? The hyper transport controller is already directly map-able to PCI-E and translates any encoding difference in the controller. Since this is the case, do we really still need something else in between? Doesnt seem like it to me.


----------



## EniGma1987

Just saw this::
http://www.overclock.net/t/1437732/amdfx-amd-steamroller-ipc-leaked-cosmology-benchmark

Complete rumor though.


----------



## NaroonGTX

A lot of things on that amdfx blog are pretty crazy. Mostly just simulated or made-up benchmarks from what I recall.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Would love to see a 6c / 6m / 6fpu Steam rollers on AM3+, that would give better single core over the 8300, and slightly better multi thread, and POSSIBLY a slightly low TDP 100w-115w maybe?

i don't think it would take much for AMD to upgrade their A88x chip sets.

A99X isn't exactly that far of a stretch in terms of ideas and practice


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Would love to see a 6c / 6m / 6fpu Steam rollers on AM3+, that would give better single core over the 8300, and slightly better multi thread, and POSSIBLY a slightly low TDP 100w-115w maybe?
> 
> i don't think it would take much for AMD to upgrade their A88x chip sets.
> 
> A99X isn't exactly that far of a stretch in terms of ideas and practice


Then you are going back to the concept of "TRUE" cores where each unit has its each individual resources. So basically you are going back to Phenom 2. The problem with that is AMD wont go this route since it would undo almost everything they have done with the module design.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> Then you are going back to the concept of "TRUE" cores where each unit has its each individual resources. So basically you are going back to Phenom 2. The problem with that is AMD wont go this route since it would undo almost everything they have done with the module design.


Well they are going that way a tiny bit by giving cores their own resources but keeping the shared part to create a better version of HT.
Of course this is nothing like Phenom II since this is a fresh arch that can actually be improved upon.

Ps your name is a lot like Alatar


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Well they are going that way a tiny bit by giving cores their own resources but keeping the shared part to create a better version of HT.
> Of course this is nothing like Phenom II since this is a fresh arch that can actually be improved upon.
> 
> Ps your name is a lot like Alatar


with that point it makes me wonder if after the optimize the shared resources what they will do next. But that is a bit off topic


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Ps your name is a lot like Alatar


OMG, them are fightin words. Lol


----------



## NaroonGTX

Adding more FPU's would be pointless. There's no point in going back to Phenom II. The reason Bulldozer was rushed out in the first place was because there really wasn't any room for improvement with Greyhound (K8 successors, K10 is actually Bulldozer, Phenom and Phenom II were still considered K8 derivatives). AMD even admitted it a long time ago, that a wall was hit with that uarch.

Bulldozer on the other hand is a pretty awesome concept, and has TONS of room for improvement. They are stepping away from a few of the original concepts as has been mentioned, but the modular design in general won't go away anytime soon.


----------



## Castaa

_Alleged_ Kaveri performance scores:

http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-steamroller-performance-revealed-integor-point-results-show-viable-competition-haswell/


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Adding more FPU's would be pointless. There's no point in going back to Phenom II. The reason Bulldozer was rushed out in the first place was because there really wasn't any room for improvement with Greyhound (K8 successors, K10 is actually Bulldozer, Phenom and Phenom II were still considered K8 derivatives). AMD even admitted it a long time ago, that a wall was hit with that uarch.
> 
> Bulldozer on the other hand is a pretty awesome concept, and has TONS of room for improvement. They are stepping away from a few of the original concepts as has been mentioned, but the modular design in general won't go away anytime soon.


I agree. There wasn't much more AMD could do with the old K8 stuff. So it was time to think new, think big and think radical and they did. The only reason Bulldozer and Zambezi did not live up to the hype was because they kept having delays on top of delays. Probably problems with Globalfoundries 32nm node. So in order to save face they had to release Bulldozer before it was ready. Piledriver is what Bulldozer at least should have been and they are all half decent processors. And with another year of R&D under the hood we will see another improvement in Steamroller. It would be nice if they released it on AM3+. But if they didin't wont really matter to me. I am sure Vishera will have plenty of legs for at least one more year on the gaming front. Maybe by then I will upgrade to Excavator.


----------



## kapulek

News on clocks and GPU gen. Take with a pinch of salt.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/3567-kaveri-avra-una-igpu-gcn-2-0-con-512-stream-processor


----------



## NaroonGTX

(This post will just play along with the chart's results, salt has already been taken)

Interesting how the CPU clocks have dropped (performance increase would offset this anyway). Interesting how the GPU is clocked at 1+GHz right out of the box.


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> News on clocks and GPU gen. Take with a pinch of salt.
> 
> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/3567-kaveri-avra-una-igpu-gcn-2-0-con-512-stream-processor


I thought AMD was going to try get 28nm out on FD-SOI?


----------



## Konbad

im sure thats what they were waiting for right?


----------



## MrJava

The numbers work out, you'll get 1050 GFLOPs out of this setup.

Scenario A:
Steamroller cores cannot clock past 3GHz on 28nm bulk.

Scenario B:
IPC uplift has allowed AMD to clock CPU cores (and maintain performance) and have TDP headroom for increased GPU clocks. Steamroller cores are still able to clock to around 4GHz.

Scenario A (if true) is very disappointing - you're only going to be getting Richland CPU performance at best. Could be the reason why an 8-core steamroller doesn't exist. This is still a big win for laptops though.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> (This post will just play along with the chart's results, salt has already been taken)
> 
> Interesting how the CPU clocks have dropped (performance increase would offset this anyway). Interesting how the GPU is clocked at 1+GHz right out of the box.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The numbers work out, you'll get 1050 GFLOPs out of this setup.
> 
> Scenario A:
> Steamroller cores cannot clock past 3GHz on 28nm bulk.
> 
> Scenario B:
> IPC uplift has allowed AMD to clock CPU cores (and maintain performance) and have TDP headroom for increased GPU clocks. Steamroller cores are still able to clock to around 4GHz.
> 
> Scenario A (if true) is very disappointing - you're only going to be getting Richland CPU performance at best. Could be the reason why an 8-core steamroller doesn't exist. This is still a big win for laptops though.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> (This post will just play along with the chart's results, salt has already been taken)
> 
> Interesting how the CPU clocks have dropped (performance increase would offset this anyway). Interesting how the GPU is clocked at 1+GHz right out of the box.
Click to expand...

If this is true, it would explain the lack of SR for HEDT. There are no good processes for AMD to use which would let the chip scale well to high frequencies.

Richland has 41.4% higher clockrate than this rumored SR part. Even the 30% IPC increase wouldn't be enough to make up for it.

If this is true and the cosmology benchmark results are true, then SR APU will actually have a slower CPU than Richland.

I think we may be about to see a sort of major win burdened by a catastrophic fabrication problem. Meaning AMD did everything they could to make SR a great chip, but they have no where to make it that would give them good clocks.

That is more or less a worst case scenario.

It would explain the release of FX 9000 series as it would mean PD would actually be faster than SR because SR couldn't clock as high thanks to bulk.

I've always used a metaphorical example of a chip that doesn't clock nearly as well with better IPC not being as good as a low IPC, high frequency chip, but I didn't think I'd actually see it come into effect like this.

40% lower clocks at 30% better IPC is very extreme for a simple update.

However I am very concerned because a lot of people feel that the front end changes won't give performance uplift to all workloads. So it's entirely feasible that the changes wouldn't make much of a difference at all and we would see SR run like a much lower clocked PD.

I think it is time that some of us brace ourselves for some massive failure.


----------



## MrJava

I don't think you can rule out Scenario B yet. The GPU is larger and has 42% higher clock rate than before. The CPU has a 42% lower clock rate.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If this is true, it would explain the lack of SR for HEDT. There are no good processes for AMD to use which would let the chip scale well to high frequencies.
> 
> Richland has 41.4% higher clockrate than this rumored SR part. Even the 30% IPC increase wouldn't be enough to make up for it.
> 
> If this is true and the cosmology benchmark results are true, then SR APU will actually have a slower CPU than Richland.
> 
> I think we may be about to see a sort of major win burdened by a catastrophic fabrication problem. Meaning AMD did everything they could to make SR a great chip, but they have no where to make it that would give them good clocks.
> 
> That is more or less a worst case scenario.
> 
> It would explain the release of FX 9000 series as it would mean PD would actually be faster than SR because SR couldn't clock as high thanks to bulk.
> 
> I've always used a metaphorical example of a chip that doesn't clock nearly as well with better IPC not being as good as a low IPC, high frequency chip, but I didn't think I'd actually see it come into effect like this.
> 
> 40% lower clocks at 30% better IPC is very extreme for a simple update.
> 
> However I am very concerned because a lot of people feel that the front end changes won't give performance uplift to all workloads. So it's entirely feasible that the changes wouldn't make much of a difference at all and we would see SR run like a much lower clocked PD.
> 
> I think it is time that some of us brace ourselves for some massive failure.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I don't think you can rule out Scenario B yet. The GPU is larger and has 42% higher clock rate than before. The CPU has a 42% lower clock rate.


That is what I was thinking.. more to stay within the tdp that they are projecting.


----------



## NaroonGTX

TDP did drop a bit to 95W from 100W. Somehow it might still overclock fairly well, to ~4ghz or a little higher. We'll (hopefully) find out in a few weeks. If the CPU didn't outperform Richland after all this time, it would be a disaster.


----------



## MrJava

Well hopefully, a 3GHz (3.2 turbo) kaveri with ~700MHz GPU will fit within a 35W TDP. This chip really needs to be competitive against the i5-3320m at the very least.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> TDP did drop a bit to 95W from 100W. Somehow it might still overclock fairly well, to ~4ghz or a little higher. We'll (hopefully) find out in a few weeks. If the CPU didn't outperform Richland after all this time, it would be a disaster.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Odds are they have solved the issue ,since they start by offering desktop variants, or so it seems. On mobile it is a win anyway, dual SR modules @ 2.6 base will overpower mobile (Dual core hyperthreaded) i5s. Mobile i7 will still be reigning supreme though.


----------



## MrJava

Yes, so a 2.5/3.2 turbo Kaveri will be between 18-35% faster than the A10-5750m, and hence pretty competitive with the mobile i5s.
Let's hope the top 35W part is not that 1.8/2.3 turbo ES we've seen so far.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Odds are they have solved the issue ,since they start by offering desktop variants, or so it seems. On mobile it is a win anyway, dual SR modules @ 2.6 base will overpower mobile (Dual core hyperthreaded) i5s. Mobile i7 will still be reigning supreme though.


----------



## Konbad

who knows if that benchmarks are true and if it is "SteamrollerB" which is what they are on now maybe they made soem changes to fix those early problems.. if not, and performance is the same as before it is a massive failure and increase of 30% that cannot be utilized and shown because looking at those benchmarks an 8 core version of that chip @ the 4.0ghz speeds of the 8350 looks like it would beat anything on 1150 and be competing against the low 2011 socket chips which would be a massive win


----------



## Alastair

I highly doubt AMD would release this chip if it ACTUALLY slower than the old one. I mean guys we need to think about this here. These are just test samples. So BULK can't deliver so would it not make sense for AMD to move back to SOI? Namely FD-SOI? Or what about HKMG on 28nm? I mean we can't get all gloomy and say " Oh God! Thats it! It's all over!







" I think some of the posts above are right. PD-SOI does not scale well below 32nm. We also know that Intel's 3D Tri-Gate thing also doesn't scale well with voltage as clock speed goes up. So this sample might only be for mobile and ultra-mobile SKU's. So then the logical option for higher performance SKU's would be to go for FD-SOI for smaller than 32nm. Also it would mean that AMD can re-use all their current SOI fabs. Going smaller than 32nm is proving to be a HUGE challenge for a lot of people. Intel are one of the few who have succeeded and even their smaller nodes seem to be more power hungry than expected.

Here. Give this a read. It makes sense. Yes I know it is mostly for GPU's but the logic can be applied to processors as well.


----------



## MrJava

Well I still don't fully accept that 3.2GHz is the maximum steamroller can get to on 28nm bulk.

SOI was probably a no-go due to increased wafer cost.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> I highly doubt AMD would release this chip if it ACTUALLY slower than the old one. I mean guys we need to think about this here. These are just test samples. So BULK can't deliver so would it not make sense for AMD to move back to SOI? Namely FD-SOI? Or what about HKMG on 28nm? I mean we can't get all gloomy and say " Oh God! Thats it! It's all over!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> " I think some of the posts above are right. PD-SOI does not scale well below 32nm. We also know that Intel's 3D Tri-Gate thing also doesn't scale well with voltage as clock speed goes up. So this sample might only be for mobile and ultra-mobile SKU's. So then the logical option for higher performance SKU's would be to go for FD-SOI for smaller than 32nm. Also it would mean that AMD can re-use all their current SOI fabs. Going smaller than 32nm is proving to be a HUGE challenge for a lot of people. Intel are one of the few who have succeeded and even their smaller nodes seem to be more power hungry than expected.
> 
> Here. Give this a read. It makes sense. Yes I know it is mostly for GPU's but the logic can be applied to processors as well.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't think AMD would go through the trouble of revising Steamroller only for it to be inferior in CPU speed to Richland. That would be ridiculous. I have faith, but I'm still gonna wait for APU '13.

The article attached to the image says that final clock speeds haven't been decided yet, so that chart must be a baseline or something.


----------



## Moragg

Is AMD still getting computers to design parts of the chip? Hopefully an influx of money (from consoles) has allowed them to design everything by hand.


----------



## EniGma1987

have any of you seen a steamroller working? Maybe AMD is going for authenticity here.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Automated designs aren't always bad. Jaguar was mostly done by machines and it's a very efficient design; no real wasted die space, good die size, great performance.

As for Steamroller/Kaveri, I have no idea.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Automated designs aren't always bad. Jaguar was mostly done by machines and it's a very efficient design; no real wasted die space, good die size, great performance.
> 
> As for Steamroller/Kaveri, I have no idea.


Yes, the idea of using automated design tools and it being bad is nothing but straight up FUD. They are very common in Nvidia, Intel, and AMD designs.

What do people think HDL is? It's literally saving 30% die space by fixing what human beings laid out with automated software.

It is good to see those clocks aren't final. The 1.8ghz leak is a mobile part without a doubt, we just don't know if it's the highest one.

The part number is this:

1M186092H4468_23/18/14/05_1304h

The M clearly denotes Mobile if you look at the rest of AMD's part numbers here (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Accelerated_Processing_Unit_microprocessors).

Now look over the list of part numbers. the next 4 characters seem to tell us something

They are usually where the chip sits on the product stack.

Now take a look at Brazos 2.0. Those 4 characters fall into the 1200 to 1800 range. These are AMD's lower end of the performance scale chips.

Scroll down more. Notice how for Mainstream Kabini the next 4 numbers go up to 5200? (AM5200...)

My two cents on this (and this is just from trying to recognize AMD's patterns with part numbers from previous parts) is that it is about a 10w APU, 1m/2c (the lower part numbers don't have that many cores).

I kind of expect it to be more of a part to compete against Baytrail-M. To be quite honest it should be extremely competitive with it if I'm drawing the right conclusions from the parts numbers.

It'd be impressive if they got it to scale that low. Perhaps this is why AMD is making such a fuss over ARM. Scale SR all the way down to 10w and then fill in the rest with ARM? IDK.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> SOI was probably a no-go due to increased wafer cost.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*


Chart makes zero sense. Why would anybody ever use 28nm bulk then from GF?

Oh btw, don't count on kaveri being revealed on November 11. Those leaked slides indicated a paper launch date of December 5. I don't know what the second date (Dec. 27) is. The date the embargo is lifted for reviews?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Chart makes zero sense. Why would anybody ever use 28nm bulk then from GF?
> 
> Oh btw, don't count on kaveri being revealed on November 11. Those leaked slides indicated a paper launch date of December 5. I don't know what the second date (Dec. 27) is. The date the embargo is lifted for reviews?


NOBODY said Kaveri would be revealed on The 11th. What has been clearly stated but twisted or ignored by some is that the road map for APU and cpu's would be revealed for 2014-2015. Since the APU conference is for developers, one would think Kaveri would be pretty thoroughly revealed in its architecture, otherwise why or how would anyone develop software to be optimized for it. What you said was moronic. I think you should know better than that.


----------



## MrJava

Do you have to react with hostility to anything said by anyone on this forum?

Unless they are giving away hardware at the conference to promote HSA technologies to developers, then they don't need to reveal ANYTHING beyond giving people a vague idea of how the various pieces of the puzzle (HSA) fit together.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> NOBODY said Kaveri would be revealed on The 11th. What has been clearly stated but twisted or ignored by some is that the road map for APU and cpu's would be revealed for 2014-2015. Since the APU conference is for developers, one would think Kaveri would be pretty thoroughly revealed in its architecture, otherwise why or how would anyone develop software to be optimized for it. What you said was moronic. I think you should know better than that.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Well I recall reading that they would talk about Mantle and reveal more developers who will be on board with that. Sony will be making a keynote as well, so I think there will be talks about the revised architecture at least SOMEWHAT. (I just wanted to type a word in allcaps since everyone else is doing it







)


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chart makes zero sense. Why would anybody ever use 28nm bulk then from GF?
> 
> Oh btw, don't count on kaveri being revealed on November 11. Those leaked slides indicated a paper launch date of December 5. I don't know what the second date (Dec. 27) is. The date the embargo is lifted for reviews?
Click to expand...

HPP is the high performance one, FD is the regular one. My guess is that if you want the higher clocks, you're going to have to go HPP and bite the bullet with paying for higher wafer cost.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Chart makes zero sense. Why would anybody ever use 28nm bulk then from GF?
> 
> Oh btw, don't count on kaveri being revealed on November 11. Those leaked slides indicated a paper launch date of December 5. I don't know what the second date (Dec. 27) is. The date the embargo is lifted for reviews?


It does make sense. Probably 28nm FDSOI is not production ready yet.

The PR date (Decemeber 5) on that slide means Production Ready and not Public Relations.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> HPP is the high performance one, FD is the regular one. My guess is that if you want the higher clocks, you're going to have to go HPP and bite the bullet with paying for higher wafer cost.


You can read the performance from the chart. According that the 28nm FDSOI can nearly provide 28 nm bulk's performance.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Do you have to react with hostility to anything said by anyone on this forum?
> 
> Unless they are giving away hardware at the conference to promote HSA technologies to developers, then they don't need to reveal ANYTHING beyond giving people a vague idea of how the various pieces of the puzzle (HSA) fit together.


Professional developers are not going to pay for registration, airfare, hotel, and food for 3 days to hear cheerleading. You really are sounding much too much like Seronx. Your remarks are simply not credible.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> HPP is the high performance one, FD is the regular one. My guess is that if you want the higher clocks, you're going to have to go HPP and bite the bullet with paying for higher wafer cost.


According to the annotation both give 30% performance improvement, FD for 10% higher wafer cost, HPP gives the same 30% for 30% higher wafer cost. It makes sense to go FD for the biggest bang for the buck. If the annotation is wrong than I strongly suggest the whole entry is fraudulent and should be ignored as fluff. As frequency has some impact on IPS , you would not have the same 30% improvement if one process method is frequency limited. It is incongruous.


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> HPP is the high performance one, FD is the regular one. My guess is that if you want the higher clocks, you're going to have to go HPP and bite the bullet with paying for higher wafer cost.
> 
> 
> 
> According to the annotation both give 30% performance improvement, FD for 10% higher wafer cost, HPP gives the same 30% for 30% higher wafer cost. It makes sense to go FD for the biggest bang for the buck. If the annotation is wrong than I strongly suggest the whole entry is fraudulent and should be ignored as fluff. As frequency has some impact on IPS , you would not have the same 30% improvement if one process method is frequency limited. It is incongruous.
Click to expand...

That slide though if you have a look at it came from Globalfoundry's website. I saw the same pic on their website. So I am sure it is pretty genuine. However from what I understand BULK will be ready to produce before FD-SOI and FinFET. So that is probably why they are going with BULK for mobile Kaviri, simply because it will be ready for production first. I am willing to bet that they are going to delay more powerful chips until FD-SOI is ready.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> That slide though if you have a look at it came from Globalfoundry's website. I saw the same pic on their website. So I am sure it is pretty genuine. However from what I understand BULK will be ready to produce before FD-SOI and FinFET. So that is probably why they are going with BULK for mobile Kaviri, simply because it will be ready for production first. I am willing to bet that they are going to delay more powerful chips until FD-SOI is ready.


Mobile? So what are they using for desktop? I was really concerned about conjecture that the cpu frequency was so low. If a different process method is employed for desktop then this discussion is almost irrelevant to me. For a mobile chip 2.9 GHZ is quite normal. Sorry for the confusion on my part. Only had 3 hours sleep.


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> That slide though if you have a look at it came from Globalfoundry's website. I saw the same pic on their website. So I am sure it is pretty genuine. However from what I understand BULK will be ready to produce before FD-SOI and FinFET. So that is probably why they are going with BULK for mobile Kaviri, simply because it will be ready for production first. I am willing to bet that they are going to delay more powerful chips until FD-SOI is ready.
> 
> 
> 
> Mobile? So what are they using for desktop? I was really concerned about conjecture that the cpu frequency was so low. If a different process method is employed for desktop then this discussion is almost irrelevant to me. For a mobile chip 2.9 GHZ is quite normal. Sorry for the confusion on my part. Only had 3 hours sleep.
Click to expand...

Well from what I understand this benchmark came from some sort of mobile or ultra-mobile chip based on the low clock speed. Also from what I understand due to the price BULK and the complexity to munufacture BULK is a route they would not want to go for high performance processors. I think AMD and GF would rather further develop the FD-SOI process. This way they do not need to make serious adjustments when they convert their PD-SOI fabs to FD-SOI and so therefore keep the prices lower.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> Well from what I understand this benchmark came from some sort of mobile or ultra-mobile chip based on the low clock speed. Also from what I understand due to the price BULK and the complexity to munufacture BULK is a route they would not want to go for high performance processors. I think AMD and GF would rather further develop the FD-SOI process. This way they do not need to make serious adjustments when they convert their PD-SOI fabs to FD-SOI and so therefore keep the prices lower.


So you are saying the first bunch of steamroller apu, both mobile and desktop will be drek. Then in a few months performance steamroller chips will be available on FD-SOI. That is logical and very likely if the situation is exactly as you describe. This however means that the crap that comes out of the gate early will likely receive poor reviews. It would be better for public perception of this major improvement over piledriver for the best chips to come out the door first.


----------



## MrJava

Lol my mistake. I still believe that the top end Kaveri APU will be 4GHz CPU and 900MHz GPU (and some headroom for both with bidirectional turbo) on 28nm bulk. Is 28nm bulk really that much worse than 32nm SOI that it can't deliver this?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> It does make sense. Probably 28nm FDSOI is not production ready yet.
> 
> The PR date (Decemeber 5) on that slide means Production Ready and not Public Relations.
> You can read the performance from the chart. According that the 28nm FDSOI can nearly provide 28 nm bulk's performance.


----------



## nitrubbb

seeing as even A10-5700 isn't bottlenecking BF4 then Kaveri will be absolutely sufficient for high-end gaming I guess


----------



## NaroonGTX

4 strong cores with no multi-thread perf penalty... Yeah, it'll definitely be more than enough for any high-end gaming, even with games supporting eight threads. The thing that a lot of people forget is that just because a game might use eight threads, doesn't mean it's using them all to their fullest (I can't realistically think of a game that would require this type of load anyway.) A quad-core was all you needed to get good frames in BF3 with 64 players, and BF4 is pretty much just BF3.5 and quads are still enough there as well.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Is 28nm bulk really that much worse than 32nm SOI that it can't deliver this?


I don't really know. I'm not a semiconductor expert.

I don't know how reliable that source but 2.9 GHz sounds definitely very low. Llano had similar clocks.


----------



## sdlvx

You guys seem to be thinking that 30% more performance always means 30% faster.

I'm looking for the slides, but GloFo tends to refer to "performance" as either "less power used at the same level of performance" or "higher clockspeed."

It is usually used interchangeably. I really find it hard to believe bulk and SOI would perform the same, SOI is vastly superior for performance.

My two cents are that Bulk is 30% better performance when it comes to power consumption and SOI is 30% better raw performance you can extract out of the chip.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Lol my mistake. I still believe that the top end Kaveri APU will be 4GHz CPU and 900MHz GPU (and some headroom for both with bidirectional turbo) on 28nm bulk. Is 28nm bulk really that much worse than 32nm SOI that it can't deliver this?


If they do NOT follow this release within a few months with FD-SOI chips that have significantly better raw performance , not merely power saving, Steamroller will be as bad a laughing stock as was Bulldozer in the eyes of the technology media, perhaps worse. It is NOT a good phenomena to release late and then on process method that does NOT deliver performance as promised and hinted at for the past 2 years.


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> Well from what I understand this benchmark came from some sort of mobile or ultra-mobile chip based on the low clock speed. Also from what I understand due to the price BULK and the complexity to munufacture BULK is a route they would not want to go for high performance processors. I think AMD and GF would rather further develop the FD-SOI process. This way they do not need to make serious adjustments when they convert their PD-SOI fabs to FD-SOI and so therefore keep the prices lower.
> 
> 
> 
> So you are saying the first bunch of steamroller apu, both mobile and desktop will be drek. Then in a few months performance steamroller chips will be available on FD-SOI. That is logical and very likely if the situation is exactly as you describe. This however means that the crap that comes out of the gate early will likely receive poor reviews. It would be better for public perception of this major improvement over piledriver for the best chips to come out the door first.
Click to expand...

No this is not what I am saying.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> You guys seem to be thinking that 30% more performance always means 30% faster.
> 
> I'm looking for the slides, but GloFo tends to refer to "performance" as either "less power used at the same level of performance" or "higher clockspeed."
> 
> It is usually used interchangeably. I really find it hard to believe bulk and SOI would perform the same, SOI is vastly superior for performance.
> 
> My two cents are that Bulk is 30% better performance when it comes to power consumption and SOI is 30% better raw performance you can extract out of the chip.


This!

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Lol my mistake. I still believe that the top end Kaveri APU will be 4GHz CPU and 900MHz GPU (and some headroom for both with bidirectional turbo) on 28nm bulk. Is 28nm bulk really that much worse than 32nm SOI that it can't deliver this?
> 
> 
> 
> If they do NOT follow this release within a few months with FD-SOI chips that have significantly better raw performance , not merely power saving, Steamroller will be as bad a laughing stock as was Bulldozer in the eyes of the technology media, perhaps worse. It is NOT a good phenomena to release late and then on process method that does NOT deliver performance as promised and hinted at for the past 2 years.
Click to expand...

What I think is AMD will release SteamrollerB cores on BULK and make these chips low power mobile chips. And then they will release SOI based Steamroller for the more performance chips later when SOI is ready. I don't think AMD and Steamroller will get bad rep if they release a low power chip first and it ends up being a really good performer for its power envelope and end up saving the good stuff for later.


----------



## Konbad

10 days and then we will know


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> No this is not what I am saying.
> This!
> What I think is AMD will release SteamrollerB cores on BULK and make these chips low power mobile chips. And then they will release SOI based Steamroller for the more performance chips later when SOI is ready. I don't think AMD and Steamroller will get bad rep if they release a low power chip first and it ends up being a really good performer for its power envelope and end up saving the good stuff for later.


Well unfortunately what you are saying is ass-backwards. The desktop chips will be in the channel by mid-February the mobile chips a few months later. So it is the opposite of what you are describing. This is fact: AMD Lisa Su stated desktop chips mid-February in retail channel; mobile chips to follow a couple of months later. So tell me where this leaves your postulations now?


----------



## Alastair

Hmmm... I see... I forgot AMD had given us a bit of a timeline to work with. Aaai... Now all that thinking and mulling over the subject was for nought! There goes my theory... Maybe then its low power desktop chips?


----------



## Alastair

I really do hope we get a new shiney FX. Imagine how fast it would be if it scales as well as 83xx yet has 30% more IPC! MIND=BLOWN!


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> Hmmm... I see... I forgot AMD had given us a bit of a timeline to work with. Aaai... Now all that thinking and mulling over the subject was for nought! There goes my theory... Maybe then its low power desktop chips?


If all that releases is low power drek in February AMD will be raked over the coals. They will hardly be competitive with I-3 Haswell let alone I-5's. I hope this is somehow incorrect. Unless they announce FX series apu will follow in 4 or 5 months.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> I really do hope we get a new shiney FX. Imagine how fast it would be if it scales as well as 83xx yet has 30% more IPC! MIND=BLOWN!


Hope so best get some positive news by the 12th. the APU conference starts the late afternoon of the 11th Pacific Standard Time. That means we should have some web postings by 9 or 10 pm EST. I know you are in South Africa, the land of the New Apartheid. That must be a good 6 to 7 hours later than EST. You'll hear early the next morning, unless you are a night owl.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> I really do hope we get a new shiney FX. Imagine how fast it would be if it scales as well as 83xx yet has 30% more IPC! MIND=BLOWN!


It would scale _more than_ the current octocores. The current BD/PD octocores only scale up to around 6.5x rather than 8x as they should. This is one reason why Thubans weren't too far behind the initial Zambezi octocores when they released. Each core getting its own independent decoder amongst other things means the scaling would either be full 8x or very close to it, as it should be.

As for Kaveri, I don't see why they would make a big deal about increasing single-threaded performance, multi-threaded scaling, and the many other fixes to the flawed uarch in the original 2012 presentation and then release a product which is coming to desktop first with disappointing performance. If you've ever seen any interviews or any marketing for the A8 and A10 APU's, they always talk about how high-performance they are. What would be the point of branding something as an A10 and "Elite Quad-Core" if it's gonna be akin to a laptop unit with low clocks and therefore hardly any point for the enthusiasts it's aimed at? I really doubt this will be the case. Some of this doomsday stuff, just no, lol.

We'll find out for sure in a little while, it goes without saying.


----------



## MrJava

I'm probably one of the few people who actually cares more about the mobile Kaveri's then.


----------



## sdlvx

Little reminder for you guys:

1. The site that posted 2.9ghz SR APU as A10-7800k also said that they had no idea what the chip was and they were just making up a name for it

2. The Cosmology website had the AMD part number in it, and the part number specifies it's a mobile chip.

Lots of disinformation being shoveled around regarding SR. Which I think is good, whenever there's disinformation floating around AMD products there is usually something really good coming.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Good points^^.

>>I'm probably one of the few people who actually cares more about the mobile Kaveri's then.

I think mobile is very important. I don't think mobile Kaveri will disappoint, especially if the rumors of it having GDDR5 support is true -- BGA versions would have insane gfx performance and would eliminate the need for dGPU's in a lot of laptops and such. Seeing as how mobile is a large portion of the sales of these chips, I think they can't afford to skimp out on any facet of Kaveri. Here's to hoping more vendors put more AMD chips in their systems after this.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Well-known overclocker 'The Stilt' made an interesting post over at xtremesystems about the Kaveri low clock rumors. Check it out.

Probably doesn't mean anything, but what if he was sent a chip to play with? Just a theory, probably completely nonsensical, lol.


----------



## EniGma1987

Im pretty sure he is just posting random stuff on it, doesn't mean anything important.


----------



## NaroonGTX

According to this article, Kaveri is on TSMC's 28nm node, not GloFo's. Grains of salt etc. right now, but interesting nonetheless.


----------



## Kuivamaa

WCCF is absolutely unreliable in the sense they post whatever they find and even sometimes fabricating stuff.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> If all that releases is low power drek in February AMD will be raked over the coals. They will hardly be competitive with I-3 Haswell let alone I-5's. I hope this is somehow incorrect. Unless they announce FX series apu will follow in 4 or 5 months.


if it is a FX part it most likely wont have a gpu so that makes it just a cpu


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> if it is a FX part it most likely wont have a gpu so that makes it just a cpu


Not necessarily at all. It may become sdopted for the APU line to denote high performance. This empnasis on power efficiency at the rxpense ofmperformance is a turn off for me. If these chips do not clock high their IPS will be significantly lower. Drek , simply drek.


----------



## Alastair

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> I really do hope we get a new shiney FX. Imagine how fast it would be if it scales as well as 83xx yet has 30% more IPC! MIND=BLOWN!
> 
> 
> 
> Hope so best get some positive news by the 12th. the APU conference starts the late afternoon of the 11th Pacific Standard Time. That means we should have some web postings by 9 or 10 pm EST. I know you are in South Africa, the *land of the New Apartheid*. That must be a good 6 to 7 hours later than EST. You'll hear early the next morning, unless you are a night owl.
Click to expand...

I LOL'ed way hard at this man! SIGH But it is still home!


----------



## fottemberg

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I think mobile is very important. I don't think mobile Kaveri will disappoint, especially if the rumors of it having GDDR5 support is true -- BGA versions would have insane gfx performance and would eliminate the need for dGPU's in a lot of laptops and such. Seeing as how mobile is a large portion of the sales of these chips, I think they can't afford to skimp out on any facet of Kaveri. Here's to hoping more vendors put more AMD chips in their systems after this.


Hi guys, I'm the writer of B&C.









Kaveri/Bald Eagle will not have GDDR5 IMC, with this APU revision. Maybe, a new revision (late 2014) will have a GDDR5 IMC. GDDR5 memory is too expansive. ( http://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitsandchips.it%2F9-hardware%2F3576-kaveri-e-bald-eagle-perdono-l-imc-per-le-gddr5 )

About the GPU frequency, we have to evaluate that a Radeon HD7750 (512SP, 8CU, GCN 1.0) generates 920 GFlops @900 MHz (SP). Also, I know that actually Kaveri ESamples can generate a similiar amount of GFlops (~930) at the same frequency. So Kaveri GPU will run at 1GHz (or more) to reach the goal of 1050 GFlops that AMD claimed during 2012.

However, Kaveri will be a great APU.









P.S. Kaveri is made by GloFo.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> Hi guys, I'm the writer of B&C.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kaveri/Bald Eagle will not have GDDR5 IMC, with this APU revision. Maybe, a new revision (late 2014) will have a GDDR5 IMC. GDDR5 memory is too expansive. ( http://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitsandchips.it%2F9-hardware%2F3576-kaveri-e-bald-eagle-perdono-l-imc-per-le-gddr5 )
> .


Boooooooo but understandable but will it be there for laptops?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> About the GPU frequency, we have to evaluate that a Radeon HD7750 (512SP, 8CU, GCN 1.0) generates 920 GFlops @900 MHz (SP). Also, I know that actually Kaveri ESamples can generate a similiar amount of GFlops (~930) at the same frequency. So Kaveri GPU will run at 1GHz (or more) to reach the goal of 1050 GFlops that AMD claimed during 2012.
> 
> However, Kaveri will be a great APU.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. *Kaveri is made by GloFo*.


Too bad it wont be on Global foundries' 25nm and have carrizo shrunk to 14nm for laptops later on I would ditch my Medion notebook in a picosecond

I'm sure people would pay that 80 dollars extra but the main question is making a notebook why the abundant vram why not go 2GB since their resolutions will be not much higher than FHD


----------



## fottemberg

GloFo 28nm HPP is a very good node, in theory. I hope that GloFo will not have any sorts of problems (unlike TSMC 28nm during 2012).

No GDDR5 IMC, for the moment.


----------



## fottemberg

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure people would pay that 80 dollars extra but the main question is making a notebook why the abundant vram why not go 2GB since their resolutions will be not much higher than FHD


Notebook OEMs are stupid, in my opinion. They make notebooks with high end GPU and the monitors are only HD Ready, in the majority. Kaveri plus DDR3 are rather sufficient for this resolution.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> Notebook OEMs are stupid, in my opinion. They make notebooks with high end GPU and the monitors are only HD Ready, in the majority. Kaveri plus DDR3 are rather sufficient for this resolution.


they make 200 types of notebooks rather than just making 20 per generation.
Low end segment in all form factors + low end battery performance form factor
Mid en all form factors
High end all form factors


----------



## fottemberg

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> they make 200 types of notebooks rather than just making 20 per generation.
> Low end segment in all form factors + low end battery performance form factor
> Mid en all form factors
> High end all form factors


Find a sub-500 dollars notebook (Ultrathin target) with a Full-HD LCD (no outlet).


----------



## MrJava

It would nice if Lenovo put Kaveri in its "real" Thinkpads. I wouldn't mind the CPU performance I have in my T530 now plus better graphics.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> Find a sub-500 dollars notebook (Ultrathin target) with a Full-HD LCD (no outlet).


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> Hi guys, I'm the writer of B&C.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kaveri/Bald Eagle will not have GDDR5 IMC, with this APU revision. Maybe, a new revision (late 2014) will have a GDDR5 IMC. GDDR5 memory is too expansive. ( http://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitsandchips.it%2F9-hardware%2F3576-kaveri-e-bald-eagle-perdono-l-imc-per-le-gddr5 )
> .
> 
> 
> 
> Boooooooo but understandable but will it be there for laptops?
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> About the GPU frequency, we have to evaluate that a Radeon HD7750 (512SP, 8CU, GCN 1.0) generates 920 GFlops @900 MHz (SP). Also, I know that actually Kaveri ESamples can generate a similiar amount of GFlops (~930) at the same frequency. So Kaveri GPU will run at 1GHz (or more) to reach the goal of 1050 GFlops that AMD claimed during 2012.
> 
> However, Kaveri will be a great APU.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. *Kaveri is made by GloFo*.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Too bad it wont be on Global foundries' 25nm and have carrizo shrunk to 14nm for laptops later on I would ditch my Medion notebook in a picosecond
> 
> I'm sure people would pay that 80 dollars extra but the main question is making a notebook why the abundant vram why not go 2GB since their resolutions will be not much higher than FHD
Click to expand...

If 25nm exists beyond the Micron/Intel coop for memory then it is a massive secret that no one knows about.

However Intel cheats at measuring their process nodes (their 22nm is more like 26 or 28nm if you measured it like the rest of the other fabs did) and perhaps GloFo is about to start cheating too and call their 28nm HPP 25nm.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> It would nice if Lenovo put Kaveri in its "real" Thinkpads. I wouldn't mind the CPU performance I have in my T530 now plus better graphics.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *fottemberg*
> 
> Find a sub-500 dollars notebook (Ultrathin target) with a Full-HD LCD (no outlet).
Click to expand...

The closest you are going to get is x131e with A4-5000 APU. It released as e145 in UK but the US version still has the old Brazos versions.

I spoke with Lenovo support and they said x131e was getting updated to Temash eventually. I think they are waiting for old stock to clear out.

It is not 1080p but it is an 11.6in subnotebook with 4 temash cores at 1.5ghz (no turbo) with HD 8330 graphics.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x131e-amd/

Really won't be a bad laptop once it releases with Jaguar.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If 25nm exists beyond the Micron/Intel coop for memory then it is a massive secret that no one knows about.
> 
> However Intel cheats at measuring their process nodes (their 22nm is more like 26 or 28nm if you measured it like the rest of the other fabs did) and perhaps GloFo is about to start cheating too and call their 28nm HPP 25nm.
> The closest you are going to get is x131e with A4-5000 APU. It released as e145 in UK but the US version still has the old Brazos versions.
> 
> I spoke with Lenovo support and they said x131e was getting updated to Temash eventually. I think they are waiting for old stock to clear out.
> 
> It is not 1080p but it is an 11.6in subnotebook with 4 temash cores at 1.5ghz (no turbo) with HD 8330 graphics.
> 
> http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x131e-amd/
> 
> Really won't be a bad laptop once it releases with Jaguar.


We need a 12 cell huge battery with the lowest power consumption hardware on the market I mean 40 hours+ of full load usage would be so amazing


----------



## MrJava

I'll just leave this here; quote from LinkedIn profile of AMD engineer:
Quote:


> Involved in designing synchronous FIFO for Core-Northbridge communication in high performance 4Ghz 28nm microprocessor. Was responsible for RTL and circuit fixes, formal verification, timing fixes and pre-tapeout design checks like fanout, writeability and noise fixes


Credit to yuri from SA Forums for the find.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I just saw someone on another site say that Kaveri is actually 28nm FD-SOI, rather than 28nm BULK.

Interesting how it says 4ghz high-performance. Every time a MOBO manufac. or otherwise mentions SR, they always say 'high-performance'. This could either be Kaveri or an unannounced FX-style part.


----------



## MrJava

Nobody would put "integral part of team working on low performance processor" on their resume, lol.


----------



## MrJava

Ewwwww ... I said "real Thinkpad" for a reason i.e. a T-series with Kaveri. Maybe Rory Read can make it happen.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x131e-amd/
> 
> Really won't be a bad laptop once it releases with Jaguar.


----------



## NaroonGTX

>>Nobody would put "integral part of team working on low performance processor" on their resume, lol.

Of course lol, but non-engineers and such (like the MOBO companies) have been saying it too. I guess it's just something to call it. I'm sure Intel referred to their P4 as high-performance too.


----------



## MrJava

I think the mobo makers are just regurgitating the marketing lines AMD has given them. That being said, they must have liked what they saw with Kaveri in order to commit to producing the nice motherboards we've seen so far.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> >>Nobody would put "integral part of team working on low performance processor" on their resume, lol.
> 
> Of course lol, but non-engineers and such (like the MOBO companies) have been saying it too. I guess it's just something to call it. I'm sure Intel referred to their P4 as high-performance too.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, all of that is very likely. Don't wanna get sucked in by marketing, but then again AMD has been on a roll lately.

Also this isn't much but:


Steamroller Athlon's confirmed and looks like they will indeed use the A-7xxx nomenclature.

Also take note of the wording there. *"Unifying infrastructure that works with current and future APU's and Processors".*

What I take from that:


FM2+ is the unified socket, or at least the start of it.
Carrizo will be on FM2+.
"Processors" could mean the Athlons or indeed FX will be coming to FM2+.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Yeah, all of that is very likely. Don't wanna get sucked in by marketing, but then again AMD has been on a roll lately.
> 
> Also this isn't much but:
> 
> 
> Steamroller Athlon's confirmed and looks like they will indeed use the A-7xxx nomenclature.


Steamroller Athlons just means the top end APU (and/or next step down) has its GPU cut out and released like that







So that still doesn't mean high core count processors yet.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I know that, that's why I said it doesn't mean much lol. The Athlon's have been that way since Socket FM1. But I did revise my older post with further speculation about the possibility of FX coming to FM2+ in the future.


----------



## PandaX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I'll just leave this here; quote from LinkedIn profile of AMD engineer:
> Credit to yuri from SA Forums for the find.


Whatever be the socket, I hope that 4GHz chip is a pure CPU chip and not an APU.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If 25nm exists beyond the Micron/Intel coop for memory then it is a massive secret that no one knows about.
> 
> However Intel cheats at measuring their process nodes (their 22nm is more like 26 or 28nm if you measured it like the rest of the other fabs did) and perhaps GloFo is about to start cheating too and call their 28nm HPP 25nm.
> .


it kind of depends if thats how intel has always measured their process nodes then its best to keep measuring it the same way to keep the scale compared to others the same


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PandaX*
> 
> Whatever be the socket, I hope that 4GHz chip is a pure CPU chip and not an APU.


With HSA you are gonna want that APU. Hence I don't get why so many fret at the APU. I get the CPU only approach, but if HSA ,and it will, can increase my performance even remotely like the leaks then throw me an iGPU.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> With HSA you are gonna want that APU. Hence I don't get why so many fret at the APU. I get the CPU only approach, but if HSA ,and it will, can increase my performance even remotely like the leaks then throw me an iGPU.


im all for apus but I just dont think it is matured enough just yet even with hsa which has yet been in effect..

I say next gen apus or ones right after that will be.


----------



## NaroonGTX

APU '13 Keynote info: http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/webcast-apu13-keynotes-2013oct31.aspx


----------



## MrJava

Its a bit of a chicken and egg problem. APUs need HSA software and in order to have HSA software APUs need to have a large user base. So its understandable that AMD would focus the next year or so on getting APUs rolled out to the masses along with the proper drivers and developer tools.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> im all for apus but I just dont think it is matured enough just yet even with hsa which has yet been in effect..
> 
> I say next gen apus or ones right after that will be.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *PandaX*
> 
> Whatever be the socket, I hope that 4GHz chip is a pure CPU chip and not an APU.


pure fantasy.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Its a bit of a chicken and egg problem. APUs need HSA software and in order to have HSA software APUs need to have a large user base. So its understandable that AMD would focus the next year or so on getting APUs rolled out to the masses along with the proper drivers and developer tools.


I understand that and happy thry are I just dont think it is there yet is all but they are making good headway and kavari will be awesome just not sure if it will be well enough to drop from a raw cpu


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *PandaX*
> 
> Whatever be the socket, I hope that 4GHz chip is a pure CPU chip and not an APU.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> With HSA you are gonna want that APU. Hence I don't get why so many fret at the APU. I get the CPU only approach, but if HSA ,and it will, can increase my performance even remotely like the leaks then throw me an iGPU.
Click to expand...

I fret the APU because I _need_ a good computer for rendering and an APU would be half of the die wasted to a GPU I can't use. The FX was a complete steal for what I use it for and I'm not going to be able to use HSA for a while, if ever, with the software I use.

I look at the SR leaks and think that a chip 30% faster per clock would take a 30 minute render and turn it into a 21 minute render. That is huge for me.

I then see these single thread improvements without the cores to back it up and I go "oh boy, AMD will finally be good at Starcraft and Skyrim, just what I always wanted!"

Unfortunately I do think that people like me are a tiny minority in the HEDT world and in a way, the APU looks like a way to ignore people like me and focus on other markets.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3m/6c APU. 32nm 6800k is only 246mm^2, with a die shrink AMD should be more than capable of putting 3 modules and a decent sized GPU while keeping die size under 325mm^2.

The biggest problem I would see with a 3m APU would be that it would cannibalize FX 6000 series, and if Orochi dies aren't yielding well enough to only go into FX 8000 series parts then AMD will end up with another FX 4000 series. You know, a chip that's competing with APUs yet does absolutely nothing to drive HSA enabled platform adoption. Basically, competing with themselves.

What would really help explain AMD's future plans with FM2+ would be to see how many watts these new FM2+ boards support. If they are supporting 135w or so we could expect perhaps a FX 8350 style chip with SR cores. If it goes to 200w, I'd expect some sort of 4m part with a small GPU. If it only goes to 100w or so, it's just going to be an APU platform and AMD would have to have something else in the works.


----------



## Alastair

Well currently looking at ASRocks A88X boards the seem to support 100w APU's. So then currently the argument for APU's only looks stronger. But maybe AMD might develop an A88FX chipset and have FM2+ FX processors for those boards? But if they do develop a 6 thread APU and has a nice performance gain from current FX and they dont develop a successor to FX then I dont think its too bad. 30% improvement with 6 threads will probably equal current 8 thread FX in multi-threaded and obviously cream them in single. So I think a 6 core APU is the sweet spot. If AMD DOES deside to release another enthusiast FX part with 4,5 or 6 modules then I would be ALL over it!!!


----------



## MrJava

FM2+ is the budget/mainstream platform, I doubt you'll see chips targeted towards your use case on that socket. Obviously AMD will want something to sell into the market for video editing, rendering and CAD which for now will be the higher end Opterons to go along with FirePro cards.

Ideally they will have a new, separate platform with more memory channels and wider I/O for high-end desktop/workstation and sell a budget CPU on that platform (somewhat akin to the i7-3820).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I fret the APU because I _need_ a good computer for rendering and an APU would be half of the die wasted to a GPU I can't use. The FX was a complete steal for what I use it for and I'm not going to be able to use HSA for a while, if ever, with the software I use.
> 
> I look at the SR leaks and think that a chip 30% faster per clock would take a 30 minute render and turn it into a 21 minute render. That is huge for me.
> 
> I then see these single thread improvements without the cores to back it up and I go "oh boy, AMD will finally be good at Starcraft and Skyrim, just what I always wanted!"
> 
> Unfortunately I do think that people like me are a tiny minority in the HEDT world and in a way, the APU looks like a way to ignore people like me and focus on other markets.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3m/6c APU. 32nm 6800k is only 246mm^2, with a die shrink AMD should be more than capable of putting 3 modules and a decent sized GPU while keeping die size under 325mm^2.
> 
> The biggest problem I would see with a 3m APU would be that it would cannibalize FX 6000 series, and if Orochi dies aren't yielding well enough to only go into FX 8000 series parts then AMD will end up with another FX 4000 series. You know, a chip that's competing with APUs yet does absolutely nothing to drive HSA enabled platform adoption. Basically, competing with themselves.
> 
> What would really help explain AMD's future plans with FM2+ would be to see how many watts these new FM2+ boards support. If they are supporting 135w or so we could expect perhaps a FX 8350 style chip with SR cores. If it goes to 200w, I'd expect some sort of 4m part with a small GPU. If it only goes to 100w or so, it's just going to be an APU platform and AMD would have to have something else in the works.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> FM2+ is the budget/mainstream platform, I doubt you'll see chips targeted towards your use case on that socket. Obviously AMD will want something to sell into the market for video editing, rendering and CAD which for now will be the higher end Opterons to go along with FirePro cards.
> 
> Ideally they will have a new, separate platform with more memory channels and wider I/O for high-end desktop/workstation and sell a budget CPU on that platform (somewhat akin to the i7-3820).


I feel bad having to repeat myself with you so much but you seem to be one of the few people who understands that an APU only future for AMD isn't going to work out and I'm hoping that others who disagree with me and you will read what we're saying.

Your points about FirePro got me thinking that FirePro evolving and AMD hiring important people from Nvidia's Quadro division and AMD pushing HSA should be a huge indicator that HSA is coming to HEDT and it's going beyond APUs.

I wish more people would understand that HSA will not replace a traditional CPU and that there will always be workloads where a solid 4m/8c or greater CPU will benefit far more than thousands of GCN cores.

Additionally, for all the "APU only in the future" folks, the reason why AMD is pushing APU right now is because it's easier to get HSA working on an APU. You have control of all communications between CPU and GPU. If you want CPU and dGPU HSA, you have to go over some sort of bus, probably PCIe if you were to do HSA now. That's not nearly enough bandwidth.

Once AMD gets HSA working with dGPUs, a single socket APU for HSA will be completely obsolete.

Imagine a situation where we have Kaveri APU vs SR FX class chip + R9 290x class GPU and ALL platforms support HSA (this is theoretical). The APU would not come anywhere near the performance of the dCPU and dGPU setup. In fact, when AMD gets this platform up and HSA is up and running (assuming it makes it to that point), APUs won't be needed anymore and they will be relegated to mobile and embedded situations where power consumption is key (like gaming consoles, laptops, etc).

Everything else will be served by HSA enabled platform with multiple GPUs if needed and a very strong CPU. I wish some of you who keep ranting that AMD's future is only APU would think beyond the year 2014.

If you still don't believe me, look:



If AMD was going APU only, why would they need context switching between dGPU?

http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/hsa10.pdf

Read that. You don't even have to go that far. HSA calls for a strong CPU for latency compute and a strong GPU for throughput compute. AMD isn't going to relegate itself to 2m/4c parts that are barely able to keep up with the Intel of 3 years ago and a GPU that barely makes it to dGPU territory.

I hope we can get off the APU ONLY train now.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Not that I disagree with you, but I haven't been seeing any "APU only" posts in here. And technically, an APU is still a CPU as it performs the same functions as a normal CPU, the only real difference is that it has a GPU directly on the same die. Not to mention it's still possible to produce APU's that have more cores/modules in the future. Nothing will stop people from planting APU's in their systems and pairing them up in an improved Hybrid Xfire mode for some OpenCL/HSA-style compute and gaming goodness.

I think people have mistaken AMD *focusing more on* APU's as them completely getting rid of CPU-only designs. That's obviously not the case, it's just that they sell many more APU's than they do FX chips so it just makes sense that they'd focus more on that type of tech (as well as helping to facilitate HSA adoption) more than the FX chips.


----------



## Tamber

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I feel bad having to repeat myself with you so much but you seem to be one of the few people who understands that an APU only future for AMD isn't going to work out and I'm hoping that others who disagree with me and you will read what we're saying.
> 
> Your points about FirePro got me thinking that FirePro evolving and AMD hiring important people from Nvidia's Quadro division and AMD pushing HSA should be a huge indicator that HSA is coming to HEDT and it's going beyond APUs.
> 
> I wish more people would understand that HSA will not replace a traditional CPU and that there will always be workloads where a solid 4m/8c or greater CPU will benefit far more than thousands of GCN cores.
> 
> Additionally, for all the "APU only in the future" folks, the reason why AMD is pushing APU right now is because it's easier to get HSA working on an APU. You have control of all communications between CPU and GPU. If you want CPU and dGPU HSA, you have to go over some sort of bus, probably PCIe if you were to do HSA now. That's not nearly enough bandwidth.
> 
> Once AMD gets HSA working with dGPUs, a single socket APU for HSA will be completely obsolete.
> 
> Imagine a situation where we have Kaveri APU vs SR FX class chip + R9 290x class GPU and ALL platforms support HSA (this is theoretical). The APU would not come anywhere near the performance of the dCPU and dGPU setup. In fact, when AMD gets this platform up and HSA is up and running (assuming it makes it to that point), APUs won't be needed anymore and they will be relegated to mobile and embedded situations where power consumption is key (like gaming consoles, laptops, etc).
> 
> Everything else will be served by HSA enabled platform with multiple GPUs if needed and a very strong CPU. I wish some of you who keep ranting that AMD's future is only APU would think beyond the year 2014.
> 
> If you still don't believe me, look:
> 
> 
> 
> If AMD was going APU only, why would they need context switching between dGPU?
> 
> http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/hsa10.pdf
> 
> Read that. You don't even have to go that far. HSA calls for a strong CPU for latency compute and a strong GPU for throughput compute. AMD isn't going to relegate itself to 2m/4c parts that are barely able to keep up with the Intel of 3 years ago and a GPU that barely makes it to dGPU territory.
> 
> I hope we can get off the APU ONLY train now.


THANK YOU.......Best post in this thread imo


----------



## Seronx

I'm pretty sure AMD will be skipping FDSOI for Thin-body NanoSOI. Which is called ETSOI by IBM and GlobalFoundries and has a FinFET ETSOI successor as well.

Also, the 4 GHz 28-nm microprocessor is for ARM not for Bulldozer or Cat.


----------



## MrJava

sdlvx: "I have a dream. That one day AMD will rise above ..."

You don't have to get on a soapbox. AMD is still selling into a market which demands pure CPU power, lots of hardware threads, lots of memory bandwidth and wide I/O. That market is the traditional server/HPC market and any products there will trickle down to gamers and enthusiasts.

The long term is a little more cloudy. The whitepaper you listed makes a strong case for *tightly integrated* LCUs (latency compute units - CPU) and TCUs (throughput compute units - GPU/DSPs/etc.). What "tightly integrated" actually means is up in the air, but I think current buses like PCIe 3.0 x16 are insufficient, and APU is the best way of doing things for now.

Oh btw: http://vr-zone.com/articles/heres-look-kaveri-apu-engineering-sample/62565.html
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I fret the APU because I _need_ a good computer for rendering and an APU would be half of the die wasted to a GPU I can't use. The FX was a complete steal for what I use it for and I'm not going to be able to use HSA for a while, if ever, with the software I use.
> 
> I look at the SR leaks and think that a chip 30% faster per clock would take a 30 minute render and turn it into a 21 minute render. That is huge for me.
> 
> I then see these single thread improvements without the cores to back it up and I go "oh boy, AMD will finally be good at Starcraft and Skyrim, just what I always wanted!"
> 
> Unfortunately I do think that people like me are a tiny minority in the HEDT world and in a way, the APU looks like a way to ignore people like me and focus on other markets.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3m/6c APU. 32nm 6800k is only 246mm^2, with a die shrink AMD should be more than capable of putting 3 modules and a decent sized GPU while keeping die size under 325mm^2.
> 
> The biggest problem I would see with a 3m APU would be that it would cannibalize FX 6000 series, and if Orochi dies aren't yielding well enough to only go into FX 8000 series parts then AMD will end up with another FX 4000 series. You know, a chip that's competing with APUs yet does absolutely nothing to drive HSA enabled platform adoption. Basically, competing with themselves.
> 
> What would really help explain AMD's future plans with FM2+ would be to see how many watts these new FM2+ boards support. If they are supporting 135w or so we could expect perhaps a FX 8350 style chip with SR cores. If it goes to 200w, I'd expect some sort of 4m part with a small GPU. If it only goes to 100w or so, it's just going to be an APU platform and AMD would have to have something else in the works.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> sdlvx: "I have a dream. That one day AMD will rise above ..."
> 
> You don't have to get on a soapbox. AMD is still selling into a market which demands pure CPU power, lots of hardware threads, lots of memory bandwidth and wide I/O. That market is the traditional server/HPC market and any products there will trickle down to gamers and enthusiasts.
> 
> The long term is a little more cloudy. The whitepaper you listed makes a strong case for *tightly integrated* LCUs (latency compute units - CPU) and TCUs (throughput compute units - GPU/DSPs/etc.). What "tightly integrated" actually means is up in the air, but I think current buses like PCIe 3.0 x16 are insufficient, and APU is the best way of doing things for now.
> 
> Oh btw: http://vr-zone.com/articles/heres-look-kaveri-apu-engineering-sample/62565.html


to follow up one this

Technically intels processors are apus already so it is a natural progresson. Later on im sure we will see more cores in apus and the igpu will help push to dgpu with hsa and huma that will be the point when it will be worth having the unified socket and enthusiest line will be on that socket. It would be much quicker having cpu freed up and the igpu pick up the slack pushing the initial computes to dgpu..

thats why I say that apus wont be worth switching to until they mature more but they definitely are going in the correct direction


----------



## L4dd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> to follow up one this
> 
> Technically intels processors are apus already so it is a natural progresson. Later on im sure we will see more cores in apus and the igpu will help push to dgpu with hsa and huma that will be the point when it will be worth having the unified socket and enthusiest line will be on that socket. It would be much quicker having cpu freed up and the igpu pick up the slack pushing the initial computes to dgpu..
> 
> thats why I say that apus wont be worth switching to until they mature more but they definitely are going in the correct direction


I want to see an integrated GPU with crossfire of four discrete GPUs being utilized for the CPU.


----------



## sdlvx

I think that there are some people in other forums who are really irking me and the whole "AMD IS APU ONLY NOW!!!" thing is driving me nuts. Sorry if I came across as overly condescending or anything, but I am dealing with this on a massive scale on other forums.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *L4dd*
> 
> I want to see an integrated GPU with crossfire of four discrete GPUs being utilized for the CPU.


thats my point if cpu is left only the do general processing that is not fully parallelled or cant be crunched by gpu efficiently that it would make full sence to do that. Imo thats the point of hsa and huma

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I think that there are some people in other forums who are really irking me and the whole "AMD IS APU ONLY NOW!!!" thing is driving me nuts. Sorry if I came across as overly condescending or anything, but I am dealing with this on a massive scale on other forums.


I get that but apu only is not a bad thing if there is further support.. a 3m6c chip with igpu would do wonders if programs then are written with access to dgpu parrallelism


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I think that there are some people in other forums who are really irking me and the whole "AMD IS APU ONLY NOW!!!" thing is driving me nuts. Sorry if I came across as overly condescending or anything, but I am dealing with this on a massive scale on other forums.


and yet they have no evidence other than speculations.


----------



## MrJava

I don't think many people are saying AMD will be APU only (and they wouldn't be anyway if they continue selling PD-based FX and Opteron). However, the argument from sdvlx and others is that AMD will release an 8 (or more) core steamroller quite soon because otherwise AMD would have a big hole in its product lineup. That's not a strong enough reason; companies have gaping holes in their product lineups all the time and for AMD its probably only going to be patched in 2015.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I'm with Java, it's not unexpected to see holes in lineups for extended periods of time. AMD won't just suddenly discontinue their current FX chips (on the contrary, they said FM1 and AM3 would be phased out, not AM3+). We know that the FX chips are simply the same silicon as the Opteron chips, just with a few of the HT links laser cut, so that's where the FX chips came from (historically, anyway.) Sure, it's possible AMD could surprise us and announce SR FX chips out of nowhere, but I doubt that will happen. Since Warsaw will replace the current Piledriver Opterons for the 2H 2014 slot, there doesn't seem to be any new FX chips (at least with a new x86 core) coming until 2015.

We've got just one more week left for all this to be cleared up.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> News on clocks and GPU gen. Take with a pinch of salt.
> 
> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/3567-kaveri-avra-una-igpu-gcn-2-0-con-512-stream-processor


The information about CPU cores clocks is not correct. Top desktop Kaveri's frequency is gonna be above/around 4GHz.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Most likely they just made up those numbers to have a chart. AMD said that the final clocks for Kaveri will be decided later on, and a very recent spotting of a Kaveri desktop ES has the base clock at 3.5 Ghz. In any case, I don't think "low clockrates" is an actual concern anymore.


----------



## MrJava

Can somebody with a FX-8150 or an FX-8350 post their BOINC scores (Whetstone and Dhrystone) @ 1.8GHz / 2.3 GHz turbo and 2 modules disabled? The test is single threaded i believe so it doesn't matter how many modules are activated. The reason is I'm a little skeptical of the posted numbers for FX bulldozer and FX piledriver as the A10-4600M has much higher BOINC scores than all three at stock and isn't even clocked that much higher (its 2.3/3.2 turbo).


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Can somebody with a FX-8150 or an FX-8350 post their BOINC scores (Whetstone and Dhrystone) @ 1.8GHz / 2.3 GHz turbo and 2 modules disabled? The test is single threaded i believe so it doesn't matter how many modules are activated. The reason is I'm a little skeptical of the posted numbers for FX bulldozer and FX piledriver as the A10-4600M has much higher BOINC scores than all three at stock and isn't even clocked that much higher (its 2.3/3.2 turbo).


I can when I get home if no one else has already.
The Windows 64-bit recommended version from this place:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php ?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> // Bulldozer
> def : Proc<"bdver1", [FeatureXOP, FeatureFMA4, FeatureCMPXCHG16B,
> FeatureAES, FeaturePRFCHW, FeaturePCLMUL,
> FeatureLZCNT, FeaturePOPCNT]>;
> // Piledriver
> def : Proc<"bdver2", [FeatureXOP, FeatureFMA4, FeatureCMPXCHG16B,
> FeatureAES, FeaturePRFCHW, FeaturePCLMUL,
> FeatureF16C, FeatureLZCNT,
> FeaturePOPCNT, FeatureBMI, FeatureTBM,
> FeatureFMA]>;
> // Steamroller
> def : Proc<"bdver3", [FeatureXOP, FeatureFMA4, FeatureCMPXCHG16B,
> FeatureAES, FeaturePRFCHW, FeaturePCLMUL,
> FeatureF16C, FeatureLZCNT,
> FeaturePOPCNT, FeatureBMI, FeatureTBM,
> FeatureFMA, FeatureFSGSBase]>;


Steamroller is on LLVM now.
Quote:


> // Haswell
> def : ProcessorModel<"core-avx2", HaswellModel,
> [FeatureAVX2, FeatureCMPXCHG16B, FeatureFastUAMem,
> FeaturePOPCNT, FeatureAES, FeaturePCLMUL, FeatureRDRAND,
> FeatureF16C, FeatureFSGSBase, FeatureMOVBE, FeatureLZCNT,
> FeatureBMI, FeatureBMI2, FeatureFMA, FeatureRTM,
> FeatureHLE]>;


Here is Haswell in comparison.


----------



## Alastair

Dont even know what that all means!


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alastair*
> 
> Dont even know what that all means!


FSGSBase, so far is the only addition.

No AVX2, MOVBE, BMI2, or RDRND yet. Hoping for an AMD specific instruction that works like AVX2, MOVBE, BMI2, RDRND. If then, Carrizo adds AVX2, MOVBE, BMI2, RDRND instructions to be compatible with Intel. Pretty much like Bulldozer(FMA4) to Piledriver(FMA4+FMA3).


----------



## EniGma1987

I thought we already knew that Kaveri and Steamroller will not have AVX2? There is not a lot changed in the cores and execution, the main improvements are in the front end and cache systems.


----------



## MrJava

Steamroller will not have any of the ISA enhancements he listed. In addition, it would not be very useful for AMD to have its own instructions for those features (they would never be used).


----------



## Caldeio

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!



"Developers: The Heart of AMD Innovation
Keeping developers at the heart of AMD innovation, Lisa Su will provide an update and announcements on how AMD is designing its IP to empower developers. Together, developers and AMD will pioneer a new world of possibilities - from breakthroughs in visual experience, to new client devices, to cloud computing, to 64-bit ARM server technology and systems. Lisa also will reveal what makes the upcoming 3rd generation of performance APUs so powerful, highlighting a landmark in heterogeneous computing design, against which all future designs will be compared"





Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!



http://amd-dev.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/apu2/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ExperienceHubImage_large.png



a few annoucements/sessions I see planned:
tressfx 2.0
Bullet 3 OpenCK Rigid Body Simulation
project phoenix
mircast amd wireless display
rapidfire(like shadowplay)
southern islands
rabbit

There going to be having 100 pcs playing bf4.

Here's a contest I saw..says you don't have to attend the summit to be enter. https://apu13.activeevents.com/portal/registration/Incentive


----------



## MrJava

I hope the "Product Demo" area on the show floor has some Kaveri systems.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I thought we already knew that Kaveri and Steamroller will not have AVX2? There is not a lot changed in the cores and execution, the main improvements are in the front end and cache systems.


I agree. Months ago I remember a posting that AVX2 would not be ready for AMD until Excavator. This is Seronx with his never ending churning.
He really does more harm than good here in my opinion.


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319988
Quote:


> Similarly, AMD will further detail its high-end x86 core called Steamroller initially implemented in 28nm technology and also previously announced.


----------



## rpsgc

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319988


Giddy!


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Can somebody with a FX-8150 or an FX-8350 post their BOINC scores (Whetstone and Dhrystone) @ 1.8GHz / 2.3 GHz turbo and 2 modules disabled?


I tried it on my 8350:

~1700 Whetstone
~5900 Dhrystone

Seems to stay at max turbo (2.3Ghz) through the benchmark, APM doesn't do much as it isn't even close to max power








I have my Asus motherboard on my workbench, so for the time being I run on my old Gigabyte board. The giga have an option in BIOS that says "One Core Per Compute Unit", I think that makes it run only 1 thread per module. Haven't tested it yet though.

Edit: Nothing better to do.. with all cores enabled in BIOS but with the "One Core Per Compute Unit" I get pretty much identical Dhrystone (as expected, I guess?) and a little more Whetstone, about 6% or ~100.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> Edit: Nothing better to do.. with all cores enabled in BIOS but with the "One Core Per Compute Unit" I get pretty much identical Dhrystone (as expected, I guess?) and a little more Whetstone, about 6% or ~100.


Yeah, I found something similar in regards to CB 15. Single thread was identical between 4m/4c mode and 4m/8c mode.

Meaning that the decode bottleneck is more than likely not going to bottleneck AT ALL if you're just doing single thread. I think people are confused, two decoders won't make single thread better, it'll make multi-thread better.

If AMD got 35% out of a single thread test then for multi-thread the chip must be a complete beast.

Someone on XS simulated 4m/4c and 2m/4c benchmarks (to remove decoder bottleneck) and these were the results: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?275873-AMD-FX-quot-Bulldozer-quot-Review-%284%29-!exclusive!-Excuse-for-1-Threaded-Perf.

Some of those results were a 40% increase by removing decoder bottleneck. If the two increases are independent (the cosmology one and the increase from removing dual decoder benchmark), SR might be insanely fast and we might not be ready for it.

It might be 35% faster in single thread but by removing the decoder benchmark it might get an extra 40% boost. Meaning FX 8350 at 4ghz is a baseline score of 1, then 30% increase of IPC is 1.3 and then 40% increase in optimal decoder bottleneck removed would be 1.82 baseline score, or 82% faster than FX 8350 at 4ghz at multi-thread.

Then again I am optimistic and I am taking the absolute best case scenarios for everything. But if that kind of situation is possible, why is there no 4m or greater SR part?

If removing decoder bottleneck by running 4m/4c is not any faster at single thread and then we are looking at a 35% increase in single thread, there must be some serious magic going on in SR. It's possible 2m/4c SR parts would see that kind of increase and it'd put it awfully close to an FX 8350.

Not sure if I'm getting this point across entirely, I've been pretty sick. Ask me questions about if it you're not getting what I'm getting at.


----------



## MrJava

Thanks. It seems we cannot conclude anything from those Kaveri ES BOINC scores (your piledriver-based chip is approximately 79% percent faster at the same clock).
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> I tried it on my 8350:
> 
> ~1700 Whetstone
> ~5900 Dhrystone
> 
> Seems to stay at max turbo (2.3Ghz) through the benchmark, APM doesn't do much as it isn't even close to max power
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have my Asus motherboard on my workbench, so for the time being I run on my old Gigabyte board. The giga have an option in BIOS that says "One Core Per Compute Unit", I think that makes it run only 1 thread per module. Haven't tested it yet though.
> 
> Edit: Nothing better to do.. with all cores enabled in BIOS but with the "One Core Per Compute Unit" I get pretty much identical Dhrystone (as expected, I guess?) and a little more Whetstone, about 6% or ~100.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Thanks. It seems we cannot conclude anything from those Kaveri ES BOINC scores (your piledriver-based chip is approximately 79% percent faster at the same clock).


Yeah, sounds like something is really not right. I did a couple of new runs, BOINC version 7.0.64, didn't disable any modules this time:

@4.75 GHZ (19x250)

2013-11-08 14:44:00 | | Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
2013-11-08 14:44:31 | | Benchmark results:
2013-11-08 14:44:31 | | Number of CPUs: 8
2013-11-08 14:44:31 | | 3558 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
2013-11-08 14:44:31 | | 11967 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
2013-11-08 14:44:32 | | Resuming computation

@2.375 GHz (9x250)

2013-11-08 14:49:54 | | Running CPU benchmarks
2013-11-08 14:49:55 | | Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
2013-11-08 14:50:26 | | Benchmark results:
2013-11-08 14:50:26 | | Number of CPUs: 8
2013-11-08 14:50:26 | | 1765 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
2013-11-08 14:50:26 | | 5913 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
2013-11-08 14:50:27 | | Resuming computation

Doesn't scale perfectly, but meh. My giga board doesn't like mutiplier overclocking at all, and with my air cooler (Tt Frio) I can't go higher than 4.75 GHz.


----------



## sdlvx

I can get higher performance at the same clocks on my FX by raising buses that don't have to do with the CPU clockspeed as well as playing with RAM timings.

We should be asking if we can find a way to get those same scores in BOINC instead of just running a test, not getting the same results, and then dismissing them. For all we know they might have done something really, really stupid like ran the PD and BD system with CPUNB underclocked or something.

But my point is that if the leaked scores are completely wrong I would want to at least have a vague idea of why they're wrong.

Maybe I will play with it a little later.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Yeah, I found something similar in regards to CB 15. Single thread was identical between 4m/4c mode and 4m/8c mode.
> 
> Meaning that the decode bottleneck is more than likely not going to bottleneck AT ALL if you're just doing single thread. I think people are confused, two decoders won't make single thread better, it'll make multi-thread better.
> 
> If AMD got 35% out of a single thread test then for multi-thread the chip must be a complete beast.
> 
> Someone on XS simulated 4m/4c and 2m/4c benchmarks (to remove decoder bottleneck) and these were the results: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?275873-AMD-FX-quot-Bulldozer-quot-Review-%284%29-!exclusive!-Excuse-for-1-Threaded-Perf.
> 
> Some of those results were a 40% increase by removing decoder bottleneck. If the two increases are independent (the cosmology one and the increase from removing dual decoder benchmark), SR might be insanely fast and we might not be ready for it.
> 
> It might be 35% faster in single thread but by removing the decoder benchmark it might get an extra 40% boost. Meaning FX 8350 at 4ghz is a baseline score of 1, then 30% increase of IPC is 1.3 and then 40% increase in optimal decoder bottleneck removed would be 1.82 baseline score, or 82% faster than FX 8350 at 4ghz at multi-thread.
> 
> Then again I am optimistic and I am taking the absolute best case scenarios for everything. But if that kind of situation is possible, why is there no 4m or greater SR part?
> 
> If removing decoder bottleneck by running 4m/4c is not any faster at single thread and then we are looking at a 35% increase in single thread, there must be some serious magic going on in SR. It's possible 2m/4c SR parts would see that kind of increase and it'd put it awfully close to an FX 8350.
> 
> Not sure if I'm getting this point across entirely, I've been pretty sick. Ask me questions about if it you're not getting what I'm getting at.


I thought the idea behind disabling all the "slave" cores of each module was to prevent the OS from erroneously loading two cores of the same module when there were available threads elsewhere, avoiding the "shared resources" penalty.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I thought the idea behind disabling all the "slave" cores of each module was to prevent the OS from erroneously loading two cores of the same module when there were available threads elsewhere, avoiding the "shared resources" penalty.


it was a bigger problem for Zambezi than piledriver
as the loss on Zambezi is up to 33% in the cores single thread speed

the loss in piledriver hovers around 22-17% not nearly as bad but still a slow down is not what we want.

I do believe if you look back at the steamroller diagrams you'll see two decoders sending an arrow to one FPU.


----------



## kapulek

Fottemberg's update on Kaveri:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/3614-kaveri-notevoli-miglioramenti-per-la-cache-l1-ed-l2-non-per-l-imc-ddr3
Quote:


> In particular, the Cache L2 becomes much faster, by about 20% compared to Richland, a non-negligible value, while the L1 cache increases both size and speed. Finally, the performance values of L1 and L2 cache should reach those of Intel Ivy Bridge and Haswell.
> 
> On the contrary, as regards the IMC of DDR3 there will be great novelty. The Bandwidth will remain similar to that obtainable with the APU Trinity / Richland (it is always a Dual Channel), and this could be the bottleneck for the iGPU, now based on architecture GCN 2.0 and significantly more powerful than that until now used by AMD in its APU.


----------



## PandaX

*AMDGaming* on facebook promoting FM2+ board?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=554484994623992&set=a.196380707101091.49383.165710583501437&type=1


----------



## MrJava

Very nice to see refinement in the caches. This bodes very well for performance if true.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> Fottemberg's update on Kaveri:
> http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.bitsandchips.it/9-hardware/3614-kaveri-notevoli-miglioramenti-per-la-cache-l1-ed-l2-non-per-l-imc-ddr3


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Very nice to see refinement in the caches. This bodes very well for performance if true.


Well it is sorely needed. look how tremendously far ahead Intels cache design is compared to AMDs. If the cache design in Kaveri can reach the level of Ivy Bridge it would absolutely fantastic. I'm not holding my breath though.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Very nice to see refinement in the caches. This bodes very well for performance if true.


If this is an accurate assessment then Kaveri may well have an overall 33 to 35% improvement in IPC over Piledriver. That would be a big boon to AMD and bode well for Excavator and an eventual return to hexacore and octacore offerings. Once AMD is competitive on IPC the hexacore and octacores can challenge Intel Extreme cpu offerings. Of course we will have to expect to pay considerably more for those big core Excavator apus. Perhaps $275 for a hexacore and $375 for an octacore. But they would still be extremely cheap compared to Intel counterparts.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I thought the idea behind disabling all the "slave" cores of each module was to prevent the OS from erroneously loading two cores of the same module when there were available threads elsewhere, avoiding the "shared resources" penalty.


I am considering the shared decoder as part of the problem. Ergo one core one module means the PD core gets its own decoder.

The news on the caches is great, but I feel like if AMD did release a pure CPU with L3 that the L3 would just be a copy paste job or something.

I think the decoder changes are only going to matter when using multiple threads. I swore I saw someone here or on another forum claiming the opposite.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138394-amds-fx-8350-analyzed-does-piledriver-deliver-where-bulldozer-fell-short/2

Found this while searching, had some interesting graphs and such.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Independent decoders in SR is a MT bottleneck fix. It was only a bottleneck in BD/PD whenever both cores in a module were fully-loaded. In effect, the first core would be putting out 100% performance scaling while the second would only scale to about 80%. AMD themselves stated that their (at the time current) implementation of CMT would yield such results in MT workloads a little bit before Zambezi originally launched. With SR, you'll get full or at least 99% performance scaling. In comparison, the FX-8350 would only scale ~6.5x or 650% at full load rather than 800% like it should ideally. Hypothetically a SR octocore would have much more throughput as a result.

This is why if AMD ever brings back FX using SR or EX cores, it would completely annihilate Intel on MT workloads and I wouldn't be shocked to see higher prices on the SKU's either.


----------



## MrJava

Are any sites actually covering APU13?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Are any sites actually covering APU13?


AMD/investor Relations. There is a menu that allows you to get a live feed of the presentations. I think Lisa Su's speech at 6pm Monday would give some of the information we are waiting for. The rest of our answers would probably be press releases and technical data sheets that should be available on-line sometime during or right after the Conference.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Are any sites actually covering APU13?


I have to correct the time of Lisa Su's keynote. She opens the conference at 4 pm Monday the 11th. She is immediately followed by Phil Rogers from AMD.


----------



## CptDanko

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> 1. both AMD and Nvidia ramping up linux support
> 2. AMD Mantle should run on Linux Also ( therefore bf4 will run on linux)
> 3. Steambox can stream games from another computer in a similar fashion to the Nvidia Shield so you should immediately have access to every single game in your steam library


If they manage to get BF4 to run on Linux with mantle and achieve same fps results as windoze then Im getting rid of windoze period


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CptDanko*
> 
> If they manage to get BF4 to run on Linux with mantle and achieve same fps results as windoze then Im getting rid of windoze period


this!


----------



## Alatar




----------



## NaroonGTX

Another ES. Not much to see there.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Another ES. Not much to see there.


By the way Naroon, I have looked at all the FM2+ motherboards. They are completely lacking in adequate pci-express slots. Not a single one offers 2 or more pci express 16 slots. That is pathetic. I have 2 7950's and I would be completely limited in performance. Also they only give you one pci express 3.0 slot. There had better be more advanced offerings soon or I wouldn't consider buying one. Very limited feature sets so far.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That's something that I noticed when looking at some of the top-end boards. It seems really weird -- why offer these supposed high-end boards if people who Xfire will be gimped? I noticed it when looking at the G1 Sniper a few weeks ago. I saw two slots were color-coded green, so I assumed they were both PCIe 3 slots. I looked closer at the spec sheet and only the first one was PCIe 3 -- the other was PCIe 2.


----------



## Dt_Freak1

so is there any news quite yet on a desktop Steamroller chip....or is that to be covered as of yet in this developers conference starting today?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Kaveri uses Steamroller cores and will be releasing on desktop before it hits mobile channel.

I guess you meant a 'CPU-only' part, and right now we don't know. It's not sure if they would even exist. The roadmaps which will released very shortly (either today or one of the following days) will clear it up.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Kaveri uses Steamroller cores and *will be releasing on desktop before it hits retail channel*.


what does that mean?


----------



## NaroonGTX

LOL! That's a huge typo on my part. I meant to say before it hits mobile channels.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That's something that I noticed when looking at some of the top-end boards. It seems really weird -- why offer these supposed high-end boards if people who Xfire will be gimped? I noticed it when looking at the G1 Sniper a few weeks ago. I saw two slots were color-coded green, so I assumed they were both PCIe 3 slots. I looked closer at the spec sheet and only the first one was PCIe 3 -- the other was PCIe 2.


The problem is there are no high end boards. All are priced just above $100 ,the highest being an Asus at $125.00 . I do not know if these are limitations in the 88X Chipset or they are just targeting the budget market. This had better change soon.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*


that looks like a great chip for mobile. Very good speed for the voltage it needs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> By the way Naroon, I have looked at all the FM2+ motherboards. They are completely lacking in adequate pci-express slots. Not a single one offers 2 or more pci express 16 slots. That is pathetic. I have 2 7950's and I would be completely limited in performance. Also they only give you one pci express 3.0 slot. There had better be more advanced offerings soon or I wouldn't consider buying one. Very limited feature sets so far.


It is the same as Intel really. It takes a lot of die space to put a PCI-E controller inside the CPU so both Intel and AMD in the desktop sockets are only putting enough I/O to support one 16x graphics slot. This can be broken down as two 8x slots of course. I hope we will soon see a PLX chip on a motherboard that gives us dual 16x slots, that is how Intel does it too. No one complains about performance of the graphics slots on the Z87 boards so no one should complain about performance with A88X and a PLX chip here either. Testing has shown that because the GPUs do not fully saturate the bus, that the use of a PLX chip to multiply lanes only gives a couple % performance hit. Which is "good enough".


----------



## toughacton

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> By the way Naroon, I have looked at all the FM2+ motherboards. They are completely lacking in adequate pci-express slots. Not a single one offers 2 or more pci express 16 slots. That is pathetic. I have 2 7950's and I would be completely limited in performance. Also they only give you one pci express 3.0 slot. There had better be more advanced offerings soon or I wouldn't consider buying one. Very limited feature sets so far.


The UP4 has 2 PCIe 3.0 slots. Granted its 16x and 8x (or 8x 8x in crossfire) but thats like the equivalent of 2 16x 2.0 slots which would be more than enough for 7950s. I will agree though that the "high end" boards don't quite look as high end as they ought to. I'm wondering if the board makers are holding back some better boards for when there are 3 or 4 module offerings for the FM2+ socket.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *toughacton*
> 
> The UP4 has 2 PCIe 3.0 slots. Granted its 16x and 8x (or 8x 8x in crossfire) but thats like the equivalent of 2 16x 2.0 slots which would be more than enough for 7950s. I will agree though that the "high end" boards don't quite look as high end as they ought to. I'm wondering if the board makers are holding back some better boards for when there are 3 or 4 module offerings for the FM2+ socket.


My Asus Crosshair V Formula Z supports 3 fully x16 slots for use and another x8 slots. So what you are saying is simply not true. Thse boards are wholly inadequate. 2 pciexpress 3.0 slots that are both x16 for crossfire are the minimum that I will accept or screw AMD as far as an upgrade to Steamroller. It is apparent they are building a low-end chipset . There will not be a 6 or 8 core apu for at least 16 to 18 months so what are you talking about?


----------



## nitrubbb

still not buyin the feb release date, do you guys?


----------



## Demonkev666

What the point of double the decoders if your only add in 50% more instruction cache ?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The problem is there are no high end boards. All are priced just above $100 ,the highest being an Asus at $125.00 . I do not know if these are limitations in the 88X Chipset or they are just targeting the budget market. This had better change soon.


I think motherboard features/prices are directly related to the very nature of cpus they are designed to host. Until now it didn't make much sense to release a 200+ rog or a 150+ sabertooth for FM2 - even the top dog processor (A10-6800k) was never above 160 If I am not mistaken. Now ,I generally agree with you,I haven't seen the equivalent of an AM3+ mobo on FM2/FM2+. UP4 from gigabyte is as good as it gets. AMD with FM2 seems to mimic intel mainstream chipsets but A88X still falls a bit short of Z87- they should offer the option of 16x/16x on pcie 3.0. I sure hope they also mimic intel in the release schedule and that we will get SR hexacores and octocores later on.A plain quad won't cut it.


----------



## MrJava

The concept of a northbridge on desktop CPU is basically dead. Here's why:



The northbridge adds latency and on AM3+ is bottlenecked anyway by the HT 3.0 link. As mentioned above the Kaveri setup provides the same bandwidth using PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 as PCIe 2.0 x16/x16 for Crossfire. Also, since AMD is doing GPU communication directly over PCIe nowadays, reducing latency by getting rid of the northbridge makes sense. If you want decent tri or quad sli, then you'll need more on-die PCIe 3.0 lanes like on LGA 2011.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> My Asus Crosshair V Formula Z supports 3 fully x16 slots for use and another x8 slots. So what you are saying is simply not true. Thse boards are wholly inadequate. 2 pciexpress 3.0 slots that are both x16 for crossfire are the minimum that I will accept or screw AMD as far as an upgrade to Steamroller. It is apparent they are building a low-end chipset . There will not be a 6 or 8 core apu for at least 16 to 18 months so what are you talking about?


----------



## Dt_Freak1

correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the sabertooth 990fx gen 3 r2.0 support SLI or Xfire at 3x PCI-e 3.0?


----------



## Kuivamaa

With the addition of a PLX unit, not natively iirc.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> still not buyin the feb release date, do you guys?


Why not? It's already written in stone by AMD. It is not a rumor.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Why not? It's already written in stone by AMD. It is not a rumor.


show me that quote from AMD. All I've seen from AMD is officially released in Q4 2013 and v early 2014 availability.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The concept of a northbridge on desktop CPU is basically dead. Here's why:
> 
> 
> 
> The northbridge adds latency and on AM3+ is bottlenecked anyway by the HT 3.0 link. As mentioned above the Kaveri setup provides the same bandwidth using PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 as PCIe 2.0 x16/x16 for Crossfire. Also, since AMD is doing GPU communication directly over PCIe nowadays, reducing latency by getting rid of the northbridge makes sense. If you want decent tri or quad sli, then you'll need more on-die PCIe 3.0 lanes like on LGA 2011.


You are only proving my point this is a low-end solution even for dual crossfire. It should support at least dual crossfire as pci x16 x16 not as x8 X8


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> show me that quote from AMD. All I've seen from AMD is officially released in Q4 2013 and v early 2014 availability.


Don't be lazy it is all over the web. Do a Google search.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Don't be lazy it is all over the web. Do a Google search.


yeah, right


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I think motherboard features/prices are directly related to the very nature of cpus they are designed to host. Until now it didn't make much sense to release a 200+ rog or a 150+ sabertooth for FM2 - even the top dog processor (A10-6800k) was never above 160 If I am not mistaken. Now ,I generally agree with you,I haven't seen the equivalent of an AM3+ mobo on FM2/FM2+. UP4 from gigabyte is as good as it gets. AMD with FM2 seems to mimic intel mainstream chipsets but A88X still falls a bit short of Z87- they should offer the option of 16x/16x on pcie 3.0. I sure hope they also mimic intel in the release schedule and that we will get SR hexacores and octocores later on.A plain quad won't cut it.


You'll be waiting at least 16 to 18 months for hexa or octocore chips. They won't be coming until Excavator.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> yeah, right


Yeah right!


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yeah right!


bet? 5$ says ure wrong


----------



## Oliverda

It's not February. Gonna be available sooner.


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You are only proving my point this is a low-end solution even for dual crossfire. It should support at least dual crossfire as pci x16 x16 not as x8 X8


pcie 3.0 x8 = pcie 2.0 x16

You currently have pcie 2.0 x 16... so 3.0 x8 isn't going to lose you any performance....


----------



## NaroonGTX

I've been hearing whispers that the 'launch' is Jan. 7th, 2014. Though mass availability will most likely be Feb. 2014. I saw AMD say Feb. in an article recently but I'm having trouble finding it.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> What the point of double the decoders if your only add in 50% more instruction cache ?


Why do you think we need twice as much instruction cache?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> pcie 3.0 x8 = pcie 2.0 x16
> 
> You currently have pcie 2.0 x 16... so 3.0 x8 isn't going to lose you any performance....


You are sadly mistaken. When I buy a board I don't just buy it for compatibility of what I have now. I want to have the ability to upgrade my video to dual crossfire 290's or even 290 x's. You can' t tell me with a straight face that the capability of the Kaveri cpu and motherboard for A88X chipset will be able to handle those cards without reducing throughput. In addition there are many on this site who have triple or quad crossfire. Also even worse sli support.

This is a low-end solution. I am afraid unless an FX apu emerges with more cores and more pci express lanes we will not see a decent motherboard. Hopefully by Excavator the landscape will improve.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I've been hearing whispers that the 'launch' is Jan. 7th, 2014. Though mass availability will most likely be Feb. 2014. I saw AMD say Feb. in an article recently but I'm having trouble finding it.


That is correct. The availability is around mid February in retail channel, the lauch is January 7.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is correct. The availability is around mid February in retail channel, the lauch is January 7.


and that is a rumor


----------



## NaroonGTX

Does anyone know of any sites that will be doing a live-blog of the conferences? Definitely not about to watch the stream, lol.


----------



## MrJava

By your definition LGA 1150 is a low-end platform since it has the same I/O capabilities as FM2+. AM3+ has a far worse setup, so I don't even know what you would call it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You are sadly mistaken. When I buy a board I don't just buy it for compatibility of what I have now. I want to have the ability to upgrade my video to dual crossfire 290's or even 290 x's. You can' t tell me with a straight face that the capability of the Kaveri cpu and motherboard for A88X chipset will be able to handle those cards without reducing throughput. In addition there are many on this site who have triple or quad crossfire. Also even worse sli support.
> 
> This is a low-end solution. I am afraid unless an FX apu emerges with more cores and more pci express lanes we will not see a decent motherboard. Hopefully by Excavator the landscape will improve.


The 64KB 2-way in BD/PD had twice the cache missrate of K10. Steamroller reduces missrate by 30% so its not quite there yet, but its a still a big improvement. Also note that the i-cache missrate is about the same as Sandy Bridge now and any further increases might negatively impact latency too much.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Why do you think we need twice as much instruction cache?


----------



## Caldeio

3 hours now until the first event. Only 2 events planned for today. But it's where the juiciest info will be.









except!!!!! mantle on the last day. but I expect they'll briefly talk about it in a opening speech.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Caldeio*
> 
> 3 hours now until the first event. Only 2 events planned for today. But it's where the juiciest info will be.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> except!!!!! mantle on the last day. but I expect they'll briefly talk about it in a opening speech.


true dat!


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> By your definition LGA 1150 is a low-end platform since it has the same I/O capabilities as FM2+. AM3+ has a far worse setup, so I don't even know what you would call it.
> The 64KB 2-way in BD/PD had twice the cache missrate of K10. Steamroller reduces missrate by 30% so its not quite there yet, but its a still a big improvement. Also note that the i-cache missrate is about the same as Sandy Bridge now and any further increases might negatively impact latency too much.


Must I repeat myself? ON my Crosshair V Formula Z I have 3 full x16 pci express 2.0 slots. Why can't they provide 2 or 3 full x16 pci Express 3.0 slots on FM2+ ??? If it is because the limit of the kaveri api, I submit it is a low-end solution. If it is because of the A88X chipset then that is a low-end solution. If it is simply because the motherboard manufacturers don't wand to spend the extra money , then their boards are low-end solutions. IT is one of the three, but the net result is we are left with a low-end solution for crossfire dual or triple. Remember we have AMD 209 and 290X graphics cards out there than exceed the bandwidth of these boards in a dual or triple crossfire situation.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Must I repeat myself? ON my Crosshair V Formula Z I have 3 full x16 pci express 2.0 slots. Why can't they provide 2 or 3 full x16 pci Express 3.0 slots on FM2+ ??? If it is because the limit of the kaveri api, I submit it is a low-end solution. If it is because of the A88X chipset then that is a low-end solution. If it is simply because the motherboard manufacturers don't wand to spend the extra money , then their boards are low-end solutions. IT is one of the three, but the net result is we are left with a low-end solution for crossfire dual or triple. Remember we have AMD 209 and 290X graphics cards out there than exceed the bandwidth of these boards in a dual or triple crossfire situation.


Pci-e 2.0 x16 has half the bandwidth of Pci-e 3.0 x16.
Brickland will have like 6 pci-e x16 slots most likely more on the supermicro boards and we haven't even maxed pci-e 2.0 x16 yet.
(I run cf 290 on a 2.0 x8 and x16 nearly no perf hit.


----------



## MrJava

Your "three full x16 slots" are useless when they are bottlenecked by the HT link. There's a reason crossfire and sli perform far better on the intel platforms.
Anyway, I'm done explaining this to you - hopefully someone out there will do crossfire benchmarks with kaveri when it comes out and we'll see what's what.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Must I repeat myself? ON my Crosshair V Formula Z I have 3 full x16 pci express 2.0 slots. Why can't they provide 2 or 3 full x16 pci Express 3.0 slots on FM2+ ??? If it is because the limit of the kaveri api, I submit it is a low-end solution. If it is because of the A88X chipset then that is a low-end solution. If it is simply because the motherboard manufacturers don't wand to spend the extra money , then their boards are low-end solutions. IT is one of the three, but the net result is we are left with a low-end solution for crossfire dual or triple. Remember we have AMD 209 and 290X graphics cards out there than exceed the bandwidth of these boards in a dual or triple crossfire situation.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Your "three full x16 slots" are useless when they are bottlenecked by the HT link. There's a reason crossfire and sli perform far better on the intel platforms.
> Anyway, I'm done explaining this to you - hopefully someone out there will do crossfire benchmarks with kaveri when it comes out and we'll see what's what.


intel uses DMI 2.0 to connect their 1150 LGA cpu's at most only 20gbs


----------



## sdlvx

However I do not think the northbridge is dead. If Hypertransport 4.0 comes out and it requires significantly less die space on a die, then there is no reason why AMD could not run two HT 4.0 links to the NB and then the NB could switch those to PCIe 3.0.

Or this:



And hey, guess what? Orochi die already has 2 HT links, one is disabled for desktop. I guess AMD doesn't even need HT 4.0. How does that make everyone feel?

This is what I think AMD is thinking of doing and they're waiting on HSA for that. If HT 4.0 comes in at 52GB/s and AMD runs two HT links to HTX slots that's 104GB/s of bandwidth between CPU and GPU.

FX already has the bandwidth to support PCIe 3.0, it's just that AMD decides to remove that (maybe because AM3+ doesn't have enough pins)

If anything AMD should release FX 8000 series with that extra link enabled and a new northbridge that has PCIe 3.0. But they need a new socket for that.

Which is why I think we might see Warsaw platform refresh with new chipset and new socket (to support multiple HT links) and then an SR or EX big CPU release on that.

If anything I think AM3+ is dead because there isn't enough bandwidth between the CPU and anything else to accomplish what AMD would like. Which, judging by the fact they have no issue releasing $999 CPUs, would be a high end gaming platform as well as a platform that supports HSA and has enough bandwidth between CPU and GPU to make it worthwhile.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Your "three full x16 slots" are useless when they are bottlenecked by the HT link. There's a reason crossfire and sli perform far better on the intel platforms.
> Anyway, I'm done explaining this to you - hopefully someone out there will do crossfire benchmarks with kaveri when it comes out and we'll see what's what.


I think you are greatly overestimating how much of a bottleneck the HT bandwidth is. Sure the current implementation is less total bandwidth than two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots, but we dont saturate full bandwidth so a few less GB/s isnt giving us a performance hit. On Intel platforms they have 32 GB/s worth of lanes being squeezed into 16 GB/s to/from the CPU through PLX chips and it takes 1-3% performance hit (talking PCI-E 2.0), which is only about 1 fps most of the time. 16GB/s is certainly less space to move data than 25 GB/S is... Intel is now up to PCI-E 3.0 which is then squeezing 64 GB/s into 32 GB/s to/from the CPU when a PLX chip is used, or just giving 16 GB/s to each GPU and not compressing at all. This 16GB/s is still not fully saturated so having a total bandwidth of 25.6GB/s for GPUs has still not become a bottleneck on AMD platforms. Maybe next gen it will be, but by then the platform we are even talking about here will be 3 years old so no one can hold it against the platform, and AMD will have a new platform soon which alleviates this bandwidth constriction for future devices. So again, no problem.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> (....)
> 
> However I do not think the northbridge is dead. If Hypertransport 4.0 comes out and it requires significantly less die space on a die, then there is no reason why AMD could not run two HT 4.0 links to the NB and then the NB could switch those to PCIe 3.0.
> 
> (...)
> 
> This is what I think AMD is thinking of doing and they're waiting on HSA for that. If HT 4.0 comes in at 52GB/s and AMD runs two HT links to HTX slots that's 104GB/s of bandwidth between CPU and GPU.


HSA needs optimal latency as well, though, does it not? A northbridge just isn't going to beat an on-die PCIe controller for latency, and giving more bandwidth to the GPUs than they can use won't do you any good.

Besides, NB is just an antiquated design: both AMD and Intel are continually moving toward complete SoCs in the names of power efficiency and reduced MoBo complexity. Opteron might keep HT for multiprocessor communication (though probably not), but I doubt that AMD is going to make a new non-server platform with either HT or an NB.

I may be wrong, but that's how I expect AMD to move.


----------



## MrJava

On LGA 1150, if you are using a single PCIe 3.0 GPU you get the full 32GB/s of bandwidth. If you are using crossfire/sli you get 16GB/s to each GPU. APUs are similar. PLX chips are only used for tri or quad GPU support for boards that support x16/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I think you are greatly overestimating how much of a bottleneck the HT bandwidth is. Sure the current implementation is less total bandwidth than two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots, but we dont saturate full bandwidth so a few less GB/s isnt giving us a performance hit. On Intel platforms they have 32 GB/s being squeezed into 16 GB/s through PLX chips and it takes 1-3% performance hit, which is only about 1 fps most of the time. 16GB/s is certainly less space to move data than 25 GB/S is...


No, they have 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes on-die to directly connect to GPUs. DMI is for the connection to the southbridge (which in turn connects to LAN, SATA, USB etc.). APUs use a similar setup with 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes for graphics (or other devices in the PCIe slots), four PCIe 2.0 to connect to A88X chipset (for LAN, SATA, USB etc.) and an additional four PCIe 2.0 lanes.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> intel uses DMI 2.0 to connect their 1150 LGA cpu's at most only 20gbs


I think a future opteron will use a combination of HT links (socket interconnect) and PCIe (I/O) like Sun and IBM chips do.
Lets say AMD stops doing MCMs and does a true SoC eliminating the chipset. This eliminates the need for one of the four HT links. If the die is large enough to have 6 - 8 modules then there is probably enough space on the perimeter for 3 HT links (enough for a 4 socket system) and 32 - 48 PCIe lanes.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> HSA needs optimal latency as well, though, does it not? A northbridge just isn't going to beat an on-die PCIe controller for latency, and giving more bandwidth to the GPUs than they can use won't do you any good.
> 
> Besides, NB is just an antiquated design: both AMD and Intel are continually moving toward complete SoCs in the names of power efficiency and reduced MoBo complexity. Opteron might keep HT for multiprocessor communication (though probably not), but I doubt that AMD is going to make a new non-server platform with either HT or an NB.
> 
> I may be wrong, but that's how I expect AMD to move.


----------



## btupsx

Team AMD recruitment call for FFW '13! Put that AMD interest where it counts, in the PPD column.


----------



## Caldeio

there talking about kaveri and SR!!!! 47% gpu
quad core with 8gcn is 35w.


----------



## tjwolf88

Where do I watch APU13? Link please.


----------



## krisz9

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> Where do I watch APU13? Link please.


http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/webcast-apu13-keynotes-2013oct31.aspx

click on apu365 hyperlink and make a quick account to get access to webcast


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *krisz9*
> 
> http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/webcast-apu13-keynotes-2013oct31.aspx
> 
> click on apu365 hyperlink and make a quick account to get access to webcast


Thank you.


----------



## krisz9

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> Thank you.


no problem









but i think its about over for today.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> On LGA 1150, if you are using a single PCIe 3.0 GPU you get the full 32GB/s of bandwidth. If you are using crossfire/sli you get 16GB/s to each GPU. APUs are similar. PLX chips are only used for tri or quad GPU support for boards that support x16/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8.


You don't seem to get the meaning of my post at all...


----------



## tjwolf88

Looks the high end (A10 7850K) is a quad core running at 3.7 Ghz (unsure on turbo) with integrated GCN 2.0 version of a 7750 running at 720 Mhz. Interesting how the high end lost 400 Mhz in the jump from Richland (A10 6800K runs at 4.1 Ghz).


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2062430/amds-next-gen-kaveri-chip-due-in-january.html
Quote:


> Theoretical GFLOPS calculated by AMD as 856 for AMD A10-7850K with AMD Radeon R7 Series Graphics. GFLOPS = CPU GFLOPS + GPU GFLOPS = CPU Core Freq (3.7 GHz) x core count (4) x 8 + GPU core Freq (720 MHz) x Radeon Core (512) x2


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> Looks the high end (A10 7850K) is a quad core running at 3.7 Ghz (unsure on turbo) with integrated GCN 2.0 version of a 7750 running at 720 Mhz. Interesting how the high end lost 400 Mhz in the jump from Richland (A10 6800K runs at 4.1 Ghz).


Wouldn't that mean there should be a pretty large IPC increase? In order for it to review half decent the 3.7 ghz kaveri should be about 10-15% faster than richland at 4.1 ghz.... so that's like a 20-25 % straight up ipc increase....


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> Interesting how the high end lost 400 Mhz in the jump from Richland (A10 6800K runs at 4.1 Ghz).


That is better than the estimated loss of frequency from changing libraries. Instead of a 20% loss the processor only lost 10% frequency. 10% less frequency with the estimated 30% increase in speed per clock cycle means a pretty good aggregate performance boost. Even if we only see a 20% performance increase on average that still brings about a net gain of 10%, and that is without L3 cache and just the quad core. If we ever manage to see a bigger, more powerful version on the FX brand or something similar then we should get a very nice CPU. Even if we dont, that is still a nice CPU side increase and we also know it has a big GPU side increase as well


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> (....)
> 
> However I do not think the northbridge is dead. If Hypertransport 4.0 comes out and it requires significantly less die space on a die, then there is no reason why AMD could not run two HT 4.0 links to the NB and then the NB could switch those to PCIe 3.0.
> 
> (...)
> 
> This is what I think AMD is thinking of doing and they're waiting on HSA for that. If HT 4.0 comes in at 52GB/s and AMD runs two HT links to HTX slots that's 104GB/s of bandwidth between CPU and GPU.
> 
> 
> 
> HSA needs optimal latency as well, though, does it not? A northbridge just isn't going to beat an on-die PCIe controller for latency, and giving more bandwidth to the GPUs than they can use won't do you any good.
> 
> Besides, NB is just an antiquated design: both AMD and Intel are continually moving toward complete SoCs in the names of power efficiency and reduced MoBo complexity. Opteron might keep HT for multiprocessor communication (though probably not), but I doubt that AMD is going to make a new non-server platform with either HT or an NB.
> 
> I may be wrong, but that's how I expect AMD to move.
Click to expand...

AMD PDFs for developers which outline HSA state that CPU is for low latency and GPU is for throughput. Meaning that it sounds like latency intensive tasks (like GUIs) will still be done on the CPU while throughput bottlenecked tasks (think encoding video) will be done on GPU. (http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/hsa10.pdf section 1.3)

Also, look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#Competing_protocols

What I'm getting out of that is that Hypertransport offers better latency. Hypertransport is latency most important and throughput least, StarFabric seems to be throughput most important and latency least, and PCIe is somewhere in the middle.

What I'd like to see is how much die space Hypertransport takes up compared to PCIe.

To be honest I would think we'd see Hypertransport links directly to GPUs (which would offer better latency than PCIe and hopefully take up less die space) with a northbridge to swap to PCIe for legacy products. If AMD wanted to be a real jerk they could make all their GPUs with HTX or PCIe compatibility and completely lock Nvidia out of AMD's platform unless Nvidia submitted to more AMD standards and made their chips Hypertransport compatible.

I don't buy the SoC design where everything that isn't a part of a single die is old news. Take a look at Apple, they added all sorts of off-die co-processors to the newest iPhone and it let them power gate things a lot better.

I don't believe AMD can go APU only, they _have_ to get HSA working on non-APU systems at some point down the line, and it'd be very profitable. If they could get Autodesk, Adobe, and office software like MS Office and Libre Office (oh hey they already did the open source office thing







) to use HSA then they could completely clobber the professional market. Who is going to care if a Xeon with 20 cores is faster than an AMD Opteron with 20 cores, when you can go with the Opteron platform with HSA and have something 5 times faster than the Opteron?

AMD making noise about professional graphics cards makes me think this is the direction they want to go in. If they don't, HSA is going to be relegated to niche workloads like custom solutions for data mining and video transcoders. It has a lot more potential than that, and I feel that AMD feels the same as well as they keep pushing HSA features that seem more targeted at consumers (gesture recognition, facial recognition, etc).

Watch what kind of stuff AMD announces at APU13 and think about the use cases for the software they're talking about and what kind of hardware you'd need to back it up.

http://developer.amd.com/apu/home/agenda-sessions/
Take a look, you'll notice Adobe shows up quite a bit between GPU accelerated video _editing_ as well as DRM and photo editing.

That market would be absolute gold for AMD if they got HSA working and it'd leave them in a position where Nvidia and Intel would be forced to compete with HSA by using traditional computing means.


----------



## MrJava

They won't even have production samples till December 5 so final clocks might be even higher. Also this OCN, overclock the heck out of this little chip.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> Looks the high end (A10 7850K) is a quad core running at 3.7 Ghz (unsure on turbo) with integrated GCN 2.0 version of a 7750 running at 720 Mhz. Interesting how the high end lost 400 Mhz in the jump from Richland (A10 6800K runs at 4.1 Ghz).


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> Wouldn't that mean there should be a pretty large IPC increase? In order for it to review half decent the 3.7 ghz kaveri should be about 10-15% faster than richland at 4.1 ghz.... so that's like a 20-25 % straight up ipc increase....


----------



## yawa

Just want to point this out guys, but who said the A10 7850K is the top of the line chip?

It's the first day.

Lets see what else shows up.


----------



## MrJava

Okay i'll reiterate:

On LGA 1150, if you are running two GPUs in crossfire/sli (x8/x8) then you have bandwidth of 16GB/s to each card (32GB/s total). On AM3+ you have 16GB/s of bandwidth to each card (32GB/s total) from the northbridge and only 25.6GB/s of bandwidth from CPU to northbridge. Sounds like a bottleneck to me, especially when you consider the xDMA engines on AMD's own R9 290X which can "saturate PCIe 3.0 x16 bandwidth". Indeed, apparently a LGA 2011 system is required for max crossfire performance with AMD's top end cards.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> You don't seem to get the meaning of my post at all...


----------



## MrJava

Even if it is the top-end, overclock it Mr. AMD Overclocker.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Just want to point this out guys, but who said the A10 7850K is the top of the line chip?
> 
> It's the first day.
> 
> Lets see what else shows up.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> What I'd like to see is how much die space Hypertransport takes up compared to PCIe.


Trying to do the math between die sizes and measuring based on images of the cores scaled properly, it appears that Hyper Transport and PCI-E take the same die space (maybe within a mm or two from each other). The difference being the PCI-E lanes seem to be stacked on top of each other vertically much of the time (at least for AMD designs), where HTT always seems to be put side by side for the lanes. So same die space, just laid out a bit different.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> To be honest I would think we'd see Hypertransport links directly to GPUs (which would offer better latency than PCIe and hopefully take up less die space) with a northbridge to swap to PCIe for legacy products.


As was already debated before between Mr.Java and myself, Hyper Transport has direct communication compatibility between itself and PCI-E in that it can directly map addresses between the two standard. So no need for a Northbridge to translate for legacy anything, and Hyper-Transport spec currently has more bandwidth than PCI-E specs. Additionally as I said just a second ago, same die space for the same amount of lanes, and we don't need HTX cards or anything like was proposed long ago because of the direct compatibility that Hyper-Transport has had for the last generation or two. And I can just see Java's response post this this once again yelling how it is wrong but cant back up the claim...


----------



## yawa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Even if it is the top-end, overclock it Mr. AMD Overclocker.


I promise, I will. To 5Ghz. In my custom water loop.

But I won't have to. Because it isn't. There will be another. I promise.


----------



## MrJava

Perhaps you should be the one to backup up your claims that HT and PCIe are "directly compatible" (they aren't). GPUs and other devices do not understand HyperTransport packets, they understand PCIe packets which are larger and hence the higher latency. In the northbridge or perhaps within the CPU's Hypertransport controller, the PCIe packets must be segmented and the segments placed within HyperTransport packets which are sent over the HyperTransport link to the northbridge. The northbridge assembles a PCIe packet from the segments and sends it to the GPU or other device. This process is repeated in the other direction towards the CPU.

HT and HTX never took off so it would make sense for AMD to move towards on-die PCIe controllers for GPUs and SSDs (hey, everyone else is doing it). I've never said that PCIe is a good processor interconnect and HT can remain for that purpose. My final point is that Seamicro's fabric is implemented with PCIe, so you can expect future opterons to have on-die PCIe controllers.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Trying to do the math between die sizes and measuring based on images of the cores scaled properly, it appears that Hyper Transport and PCI-E take the same die space (maybe within a mm or two from each other). The difference being the PCI-E lanes seem to be stacked on top of each other vertically, where HTT always seems to be put side by side for the lanes. So same die space, just laid out a bit different.
> As was already debated before between Mr.Java and myself, Hyper Transport has direct communication compatibility between itself and PCI-E in that it can directly map addresses between the two standard. So no need for a Northbridge to translate for legacy anything, and Hyper-Transport spec currently has more bandwidth than PCI-E specs. Additionally as I said just a second ago, same die space for the same amount of lanes, and we don't need HTX cards or anything like was proposed long ago because of the direct compatibility that Hyper-Transport has had for the last generation or two. And I can just see Java's response post this this once again yelling how it is wrong but cant back up the claim...


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Perhaps you should be the one to backup up your claims that HT and PCIe are "directly compatible" (they aren't).


You still didnt provide proof, just your opinion on how the technologies work. As per the Hyper-Transport specifications paper, the HTT controller supports 40-bit re-addressing, direct 8b10b communication from encoding/decoding (which PCI-E 2.1 and lower uses), and a few other things that allow direct communication between HTT controller and PCI-E. Here is just one example from the documents, in a section called "PCI-Express Transaction Mapping to HyperTransport Packets". Ill skip all the table stuff and give you the most important sentence near the beginning: "All PCI Express transactions use a HyperTransport sequence ID of 0. So yes you can map PCI-E addresses and packets directly to HTT address space. There are many other sections about the compatibility and how HTT communicates directly to PCI-E, and there is even an example in one part showing address remapping between HTT controller and PCI-E space. There is even a whole section in an Appendix to the specifications documents that talks about the ordering and command mapping of how PCI-E is done within HyperTransport. Perhaps rather than simply thinking you know so much on this subject you should actually look into the specifications that you are debating against?

BTW, current spec HTT has 51.2GB/s bandwidth, enough to fit a full PCI-E 3.0 lanes within the HTT link. AMD uses an old spec and only half links in their controllers right now. Nothing to stop them from using full spec'ed controller in the future. HTT 4.0 looks to add significantly more bandwidth once again too. By that point it may have enough to support 16x PCI-E 4.0 tech that is coming in the future.

Since AMD already has four half-link HTT controllers on the die, they could use the same die space to put two full link controllers in. This would give 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth, or in other terms: enough for three full x16 PCI-E 3.0 slots plus extra room to spare for southbridge and other I/O.

Edit: oh one more small excerpt from a section I found interesting:

"PCI Express defines Address Translation Services to allow endpoint devices or bridges to improve I/O performance.This appendix provides the HyperTransport packet formats needed to provide these services in systems using HyperTransport links."


----------



## istudy92

So, I am getting 780ti...i have amd board..8320...im reading your stuff on thread..and..well..its kinda technical lol.
I understand the points but, i guess noone has answer...

Would an SLI really be bottlenecked on a amd board?? I choose to stick with amd cpu for 1 reason..8 cores being used for games in the future..but doesnt like i7 do 8 threads too??

Sorry..not exactly as good about this stuff as u guys =]

edit: if so would steamroller improve things or do you think there is no hope gaming wise?


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *istudy92*
> 
> So, I am getting 780ti...i have amd board..8320...im reading your stuff on thread..and..well..its kinda technical lol.
> I understand the points but, i guess noone has answer...
> 
> Would an SLI really be bottlenecked on a amd board?? I choose to stick with amd cpu for 1 reason..8 cores being used for games in the future..but doesnt like i7 do 8 threads too??
> 
> Sorry..not exactly as good about this stuff as u guys =]


This isn't the thread for this. Also, yes a FX 8320 will bottleneck a 780ti in all but highly threaded games.


----------



## os2wiz

That doesn't make too much sense. Why would AMD demonstrate their second best Kaveri APU and talk about the gigaflops instead of their fastest. Not logical. If not logical it is wrong.


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://community.amd.com/community/amd-blogs/amd-business/blog/2013/10/21/what-is-your-processor-iq

It mentions here that the CPU is 131 GLOPs. Can anyone get any idea on x86 performance from this?
Quote:


> Evaluating the "IQ" of an APU requires determining its ability to process information measured in operations per second - specifically, GFLOPS (GFLOPS). For example, an AMD Elite A-series processor is capable of 769 GFLOPS, with the logical-side CPU producing 131 GFLOPS, and the creative-side GPU producing 638 GFLOPS.


----------



## Caldeio

Hmm idk, I can't get a specific way to measure flops.

I think it's core clock X flops per cycle X cores

4 core 3.7ghz kaveri is 236.8 flops.
4 core 3.5ghz 4770k is 448
3770k is 224

a 4.2ghz 8 core streamroller would be 537.6
a 3.5ghz 8 core streamroller would be 448
this is at kaveri 16 flops per cycle.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Caldeio*
> 
> Hmm idk, I can't get a specific way to measure flops.
> 
> I think it's core clock X flops per cycle X cores
> 
> 4 core 3.7ghz kaveri is 236.8 flops.


-AMD A10 7850K-
CPU: 3.7 * 4 * 8 = 118.4 GFlops
GPU: 0.72 * 512 * 2 = 737.28 GFlops
Total Aggregate: 855.68 GFlops

-AMD A10 6800K-
CPU: 4.1 * 4 * 8 = 131.2 GFlops
GPU: 0.844 * 384 * 2 = 648.192 GFlops
Total Aggregate: 779.392 GFlops

-Intel i7 4770R-
CPU: 3.6 * 4 * 32 = 460.8 GFlops
GPU: 1.3 * 40 * 16 = 832 GFlops
Total Aggregate: 1292.8 GFlops

Clock Speed(in GHz) * Unit amount * Peak Flops


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Must I repeat myself? ON my Crosshair V Formula Z I have 3 full x16 pci express 2.0 slots. Why can't they provide 2 or 3 full x16 pci Express 3.0 slots on FM2+ ??? If it is because the limit of the kaveri api, I submit it is a low-end solution. If it is because of the A88X chipset then that is a low-end solution. If it is simply because the motherboard manufacturers don't wand to spend the extra money , then their boards are low-end solutions. IT is one of the three, but the net result is we are left with a low-end solution for crossfire dual or triple. Remember we have AMD 209 and 290X graphics cards out there than exceed the bandwidth of these boards in a dual or triple crossfire situation.


your board CANNOT run @ 16x/16x/16x/8x

if all slots are filled you get 16x / 8x / 8x /4x (don't believe me? read your manual ) chapter one 1-6 should be enough to explain.

so two pcie3 x8 slots would be a side grade.. unless you are running more then 3 gpus then all logical sense is thrown out the window.


----------



## MrJava

Sigh ... I hate to make you do so much homework in order to pointlessly argue this with me. I really don't have much background in this stuff, but I don't really need it to understand the obvious.

Exhibit A:


This really has nothing to do with addressing, if you want to communicate with PCIe devices they need to receive PCIe packets. In addition, as you can see a PCIe packet can have up to 4KB of data within, while a HT packet can only have 64 bytes. Hence, the PCIe packets may have to be segmented (broken up), encapsulated within the HT packet and sent to the northbridge where the PCIe packet will be reassembled from the fragments and delivered to the PCIe device.

Granted you give some examples of how HT can eliminate redundancy in the packet headers by putting some of the PCIe header info in the HT header, not carrying the PCIe frame etc. All of this makes better use of HT bandwidth. Still, all of this overhead is unnecessary if you are only communicating with PCIe devices (i.e. your northbridge is not also connected to other devices via RapidIO, Infiniband etc.). Its better to just have direct communication using a PCIe controller.

I'll say again that HT cannot be replaced for chip-to-chip interconnects yet. HT is not serial and the latency is far lower with the smaller packet size and packet header overhead when you want to do things like bring in a cache line from another CPU.

As I've said before to os2wiz, the proof is in the pudding. We can argue this again when future Opteron SoCs surface - I'm predicting on-die controllers for PCIe, 40GbE, USB, SATA and of course, HT for chip-to-chip interconnect. Maybe Mark Papermaster will shed more light on Wednesday.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> [tldr]You still didnt provide proof, just your opinion on how the technologies work. As per the Hyper-Transport specifications paper, the HTT controller supports 40-bit re-addressing, direct 8b10b communication from encoding/decoding (which PCI-E 2.1 and lower uses), .... [/tldr]


No 256-bit FMACs for Steamroller after all.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> -AMD A10 7850K-
> CPU: 3.7 * 4 * 8 = 118.4 GFlops
> GPU: 0.72 * 512 * 2 = 737.28 GFlops
> Total Aggregate: 855.68 GFlops
> 
> -AMD A10 6800K-
> CPU: 4.1 * 4 * 8 = 131.2 GFlops
> GPU: 0.844 * 384 * 2 = 648.192 GFlops
> Total Aggregate: 779.392 GFlops
> 
> -Intel i7 4770R-
> CPU: 3.6 * 4 * 32 = 460.8 GFlops
> GPU: 1.3 * 40 * 16 = 832 GFlops
> Total Aggregate: 1292.8 GFlops
> 
> Clock Speed(in GHz) * Unit amount * Peak Flops


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> your board CANNOT run @ 16x/16x/16x/8x
> 
> if all slots are filled you get 16x / 8x / 8x /4x (don't believe me? read your manual ) chapter one 1-6 should be enough to explain.
> 
> so two pcie3 x8 slots would be a side grade.. unless you are running more then 3 gpus then all logical sense is thrown out the window.


o
my point was in dual crossfire you get full 16 x for both slots. You are not getting 16 x for both slots for the FM 2+ boards. No one has proven if you dual crossfire 2 290x boards that there is adequate bandwidth so as not to reduce some performance. Frankly I won't believe it until somebody tests 290x boards in dual crossfire first on FM2+ with Steamroller A18 7850 and then on a high end Intel board with 2 fully 16 x slots in crossfire like a Maximus IV Extreme.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> o
> my point was in dual crossfire you get full 16 x for both slots. You are not getting 16 x for both slots for the FM 2+ boards. No one has proven if you dual crossfire 2 290x boards that there is adequate bandwidth so as not to reduce some performance. Frankly I won't believe it until somebody tests 290x boards in dual crossfire first on FM2+ with Steamroller A18 7850 and then on a high end Intel board with 2 fully 16 x slots in crossfire like a Maximus IV Extreme.


ok, let me get this straight...

you want to compare a 2nd gen intel pcie 2.0 in 16x/16x against an AMD pcie 3 16x/8x or even 8x/8x?

16x + 16x on pcie 2 will get you about 16gb/s

on ONE single 16x pcie 3 you get 15.75gbs

as i can only find one FM2+ board that actually has more then one pice slot and even having the second card running at 4x

you will still get more thru put then you would on a pair of 16x pcie 2.0

this is purely on numbers.

also take into account you need to go to LGA 2011 to get more then 16 lanes of PCIE 3.0, also from most tests pcie 3.0 doesn't yield HUGE differences over pcie 2.0.

yes, we seem to be a ways off from full pcie 3.0 implementation


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> ok, let me get this straight...
> 
> you want to compare a 2nd gen intel pcie 2.0 in 16x/16x against an AMD pcie 3 16x/8x or even 8x/8x?
> 
> 16x + 16x on pcie 2 will get you about 16gb/s
> 
> on ONE single pcie 3 you get 15.75gbs
> 
> as i can only find one FM2+ board that actually has more then one pice slot and even having the second card running at 4x
> 
> you will still get more thru put then you would on a pair of 16x pcie 2.0
> 
> this is purely on numbers.
> 
> also take into account you need to go to LGA 2011 to get more then 16 lanes of PCIE 3.0, also from most tests pcie 3.0 doesn't yield HUGE differences over pcie 2.0.


You are telling me none of the newer Maximus IV boards support pci express 3.0 ? I find that hard to
believe. Then LGA 2011 is a better scheme. If it means 6 or 7 % performance fifference it means something. I don't upgrade to half-step solutions. You can count me out for FM2+. I will wait until Excavator comes and hope there are superior boards available with full features, not this schlock crap that I see on FM2+. I am used to quality and features not these low end pieces of crap.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You are telling me none of the newer Maximus IV boards support pci express 3.0 ? I find that hard to
> believe. Then LGA 2011 is a better scheme. If it means 6 or 7 % performance fifference it means something. I don't upgrade to half-step solutions. You can count me out for FM2+. I will wait until Excavator comes and hope there are superior boards available with full features, not this schlock crap that I see on FM2+. I am used to quality and features not these low end pieces of crap.


maximus IV is P67 chipset on the lga 1155 socket. (in other word, sandy bridge, which had NO pcie 3.0 ability)

you mean maximus VI? if so, it only has access to 16 lane of pcie 3.0 (apposed to the 40 on LGA 2011, which in Rog terminology is the Rampage series.)

STILL not enough to do full 16x crossfire.

why you would even consider FM2+ coming from AM3+ is beyond me, when NOTHING on FM2+ is even comparable to am3+ in terms of performance. half the cores with only what 2 or 3 models that exceed 4ghz?

if FM2+ is going to be the unified socket there is no need to put out boards that support the enthusiast builds until there are processors to match with it.

IF FX is brought to FM2+ with an added igpu, I'm damn sure it will have enough lanes to support pcie 3.0 in at least full crossfire. also giving the igpu instructions to be able to run single threaded processes would be a godsend.

the only reason you would see advantages in lga 1150 vs FM2+ is because lga1150 can use pcie on three different slots (8x/4x/4x) [so one 16x, or 8x/8x] all with one more slot @ pcie 2.0 8x (at its current state)

also it was about 5%-7% better was comparing sandy bridge to ivy bridge, so most of which was justifiably due to the IPC increase in generations. so if you take that out of the equation your left with a very small performance boost.

you sound like you want a haswell chip..


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> maximus IV is P67 chipset on the lga 1155 socket.
> 
> you mean maximus VI?


I guess I mentioned the wrong Maximus motherboard. In any case you understand the issues I have raised. The FM2+ boards are not mature in their development and Kaveri pci express implementation is minimalist. I see no point in them having implemented pci expreess 3.0 in the way they did. It is so limited it really offers nothing to the user.


----------



## Konbad

TTL had a rant about pcie and slots available on one of his Ivy-E Vids, i cannot remember which one.. but i think ivy-e has 40 pcie lanes total also i dont think even a 780ti is really bottlenecked by a 8x pcie3 slot


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I guess I mentioned the wrong Maximus motherboard. In any case you understand the issues I have raised. The FM2+ boards are not mature in their development and Kaveri pci express implementation is minimalist. I see no point in them having implemented pci expreess 3.0 in the way they did. It is so limited it really offers nothing to the user.


you are not understanding my point.

please tell me how many FM2+ boards you can find... I found 2 (a non ROG asus, and a gigabyte)

lots of Fm2 but very very few FM2+, Fm2+ will have the EXACT same pcie 3.0 implementation

z87 can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0, A88x can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0.

you just need to wait until ATX or Eatx boards are available from all channels of manufactures, that actually have more physical room for more pcie slots. there just has to be a need for it to make the board partners actually want to design and build it.

I've seen absolutely nothing that tells me that A88x cannot run more then one pcie slot @ pcie 3.0 standards.

Again the processors that FM2+ are support are not even out yet. with such limited options right now. you feel it necessary to condemn something? when you've not scratched the tip of the ice burg.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I guess I mentioned the wrong Maximus motherboard. In any case you understand the issues I have raised. The FM2+ boards are not mature in their development and Kaveri pci express implementation is minimalist. I see no point in them having implemented pci expreess 3.0 in the way they did. It is so limited it really offers nothing to the user.
> 
> 
> 
> you are not understanding my point.
> 
> please tell me how many FM2+ boards you can find... I found 2 (a non ROG asus, and a gigabyte)
> 
> lots of Fm2 but very very few FM2+, Fm2+ will have the EXACT same pcie 3.0 implementation
> 
> z87 can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0, A88x can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0.
> 
> you just need to wait until ATX or Eatx boards are available from all channels of manufactures, that actually have more physical room for more pcie slots. there just has to be a need for it to make the board partners actually want to design and build it.
> 
> I've seen absolutely nothing that tells me that A88x cannot run more then one pcie slot @ pcie 3.0 standards.
> 
> Again the processors that FM2+ are support are not even out yet. with such limited options right now. you feel it necessary to condemn something? when you've not scratched the tip of the ice burg.
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007625%20600474773&IsNodeId=1&name=FM2%2b%20%2f%20FM2

I found a lot.

We are gonna have to see how SR performs if that will be a problem or not.

For those of you who are wanting more traditional CPU cores, did some math in an S|A post and I figured I'd share it here as well
Quote:


> newNode^2 / oldNode^2 * dieSize = newDieSize
> 
> So a 4m/8c part at 315mm^2 would end up at
> 
> 20^2 / 32^2 *315
> 400 / 1024 * 315
> 
> 123mm^2? Is that right?
> 
> And then Pitcairn is 212mm^2 so
> 
> 20^2 / 32^2 * 212
> 400 / 1024 * 212
> 
> 82mm^2
> 
> So 20nm APU could consist of 4m/8c and Pitcairn level GPU for around 300mm^2 (by the time you add IMC and uncore, I have no idea how much that would be.
> 
> By the time you hit 14nm, 4m/8c is 60mm^2 and if you assume 435mm^2 for Hawaii (I've seen a lot of varying numbers) is 83mm^2?


So I guess maybe AMD will go APU only in the future, but it won't matter because you'll be able to get 4m/8c system with Pitcairn level GPU on a die smaller than Vishera is now.

AMD once again screwed by GF. If Kaveri was 20nm we would probably have that 3m/6c 856GCN core (I think) part that people were hoping for. And SR might have had enough to make up for PD's extra module.

But if core sizes are going to scale like that with die shrinks I don't see why AMD would even need a HEDT platform, you'd be able to easily match a common gaming rig with a simple APU by the time we hit 20nm, and by 14nm you're looking at a possibility of a 4m/8c + Hawaii class GPU on a die smaller than Vishera.

I guess it's all making sense. At 14nm AMD could make 32m/64c die and it would be barely bigger than Vishera is now.

It seems to me like AMD's APU plans also account for node shrinking and instead of just making a smaller die, which concentrates heat more and is harder to cool, instead uses that die for something that isn't really related to traditional CPU workloads at all.

Really would like someone to double check on that math for me but I hope it's ok.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> you are not understanding my point.
> 
> please tell me how many FM2+ boards you can find... I found 2 (a non ROG asus, and a gigabyte)
> 
> lots of Fm2 but very very few FM2+, Fm2+ will have the EXACT same pcie 3.0 implementation
> 
> z87 can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0, A88x can do 16 lanes of pcie 3.0.
> 
> you just need to wait until ATX or Eatx boards are available from all channels of manufactures, that actually have more physical room for more pcie slots. there just has to be a need for it to make the board partners actually want to design and build it.
> 
> I've seen absolutely nothing that tells me that A88x cannot run more then one pcie slot @ pcie 3.0 standards.
> 
> Again the processors that FM2+ are support are not even out yet. with such limited options right now. you feel it necessary to condemn something? when you've not scratched the tip of the ice burg.


That Gigabyte board with 2 pci express 3.0 slots is ATX right. SO that is not the issue. It is the cpu itself. It needed another pci express 3.0 channel in order to support full pci express 3.0 performance at least in dual crossfire mode. I do NOT see why you can't understand what is obvious. I really don't
care what or what not the Z87 boards do. My current board has dual crossfire x 16 in dual crossfire mode. There should be no reason except minimalist designing to explain why that is NOT implemented on the Kaveri PCI express 3.0 implementation. It should be standard on a decent quality board and any properly designed cpu. I really don't care that you guys who don't have high end dual crossfire don't think it is a big thing. To me it is.


----------



## Konbad

this is my thoughts exactly i dont have an FM2+ motherboard i need to do a full system overhaul and intels X9 chipset is looking better then anything AMD has annouced, that and ive read on some other forums that intel might move the top end 1150 CPU to a 6 core variant on broadwell.. that is more appealing than AMD's APU only and hoping HSA takes off


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That Gigabyte board with 2 pci express 3.0 slots is ATX right. SO that is not the issue. It is the cpu itself. It needed another pci express 3.0 channel in order to support full pci express 3.0 performance at least in dual crossfire mode. I do NOT see why you can't understand what is obvious. I really don't
> care what or what not the Z87 boards do. My current board has dual crossfire x 16 in dual crossfire mode. There should be no reason except minimalist designing to explain why that is NOT implemented on the Kaveri PCI express 3.0 implementation. It should be standard on a decent quality board and any properly designed cpu. I really don't care that you guys who don't have high end dual crossfire don't think it is a big thing. To me it is.


only lga 2011 can do full crossfire at 16x/16x

one pcie 3.0 @ 16x + one pcie 2.0 @ 16X (23.75 gb/s) has more potential for thru put then lga 1150 running 8x/4x/4x or 8x/8x (15.75 gb/s)

please go do the math.

why can't you understand that what you are asking for only exists in ONE lga platform at this current point in time. HASWELL CANNOT DO THIS !!!! you need an IB-e or SB-e to accomplish that.

drop the condescending act. its rather insulting.

you are running At best 16gb/s with your crossfire. move to say that kaveri and fm2+ your gpus now have access to more thru put. so 16gb/s vs 23.75gb/s transfer speeds.

you really need to do more research before you totally bash something.

your expecting double what intel has been doing for the past 2 generations on its lga 1155 and lga 1150?

ok have fun with that..


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> only lga 2011 can do full crossfire at 16x/16x
> 
> one pcie 3.0 @ 16x + one pcie 2.0 @ 16X (23.75 gb/s) has more potential for thru put then lga 1150 running 8x/4x/4x or 8x/8x (15.75 gb/s)
> 
> please go do the math.
> 
> why can't you understand that what you are asking for only exists in ONE lga platform at this current point in time. HASWELL CANNOT DO THIS !!!! you need an IB-e or SB-e to accomplish that.
> 
> drop the condescending act. its rather insulting.
> 
> you are running At best 16gb/s with your crossfire. move to say that kaveri and fm2+ your gpus now have access to more thru put. so 16gb/s vs 23.75gb/s transfer speeds.
> 
> you really need to do more research before you totally bash something.
> your expecting double what intel has been doing for the past 2 generations on its lga 1155 and lga 1150?
> 
> ok have fun with that..


Let's deal with your numbers 16 gb/sec on pci express 2.0 vs 23.75 Gb/sec on pci express 3.0. Can that
brain of yours realize it should be 32 gb/sec on pci express 3.0 since pci express 3.0 is twice as fast? So
obviously they implemented pci express 3.0 without sufficient lanes. The fact is that this is true, otherwise
Excavator would have the same number of pci express lanes as steamroller. Excavator will have additional
pci express lanes. Case closed. Geez you are stubborn and wrong.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Let's deal with your numbers 16 gb/sec on pci express 2.0 vs 23.75 Gb/sec on pci express 3.0. Can that
> brain of yours realize it should be 32 gb/sec on pci express 3.0 since pci express 3.0 is twice as fast? So
> obviously they implemented pci express 3.0 without sufficient lanes. The fact is that this is true, otherwise
> Excavator would have the same number of pci express lanes as steamroller. Excavator will have additional
> pci express lanes. Case closed. Geez you are stubborn and wrong.


that would be for pcie3 x16.. which really isnt implemented. . Tbh fm2+ is a side grade to am3+ due to chipset features..

regardless its not a loss but its not a gain with moving to pcie3 but it positions amd for better hsa in the future with huma support.. then full featured boards that we are traditionally seeing will come out.. at this time it will be like choosing intel or amd.. but apu vs cpu.. should I also mention the xfire with the igpu and gpu meaning and correct me if I am wrong trifire with 2 dgpu and the igpu.. isnt that the main goal with hsa so all memory is shared to allow less latency

In this case although I am not amazed at the boards coming I do step back and acknowledge what is being done.. do I think better boards should come out of course but has anyone looked at the limitations of a88 chipset?

This is the correct path to a unified socket but as I stated before it is still very young.. once kaveri releases and amd works on the improvements big changes will be made making the next apu the bigger stepping stone

as a company the are now back on track and working at being competative again.

heck 10% performance increase with 10% less clock means a good 20% increase in ipc that is only going to show more strength 20% ipc is far better than intels 5% increase as of late...

right track but not there yet but definitely something to be excited for


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> that would be for pcie3 x16.. which really isnt implemented. . Tbh fm2+ is a side grade to am3+ due to chipset features..
> 
> regardless its not a loss but its not a gain with moving to pcie3 but it positions amd for better hsa in the future with huma support.. then full featured boards that we are traditionally seeing will come out.. at this time it will be like choosing intel or amd.. but apu vs cpu.. should I also mention the xfire with the igpu and gpu meaning and correct me if I am wrong trifire with 2 dgpu and the igpu.. isnt that the main goal with hsa so all memory is shared to allow less latency
> 
> In this case although I am not amazed at the boards coming I do step back and acknowledge what is being done.. do I think better boards should come out of course but has anyone looked at the limitations of a88 chipset?
> 
> This is the correct path to a unified socket but as I stated before it is still very young.. once kaveri releases and amd works on the improvements big changes will be made making the next apu the bigger stepping stone
> 
> as a company the are now back on track and working at being competative again.
> 
> heck 10% performance increase with 10% less clock means a good 20% increase in ipc that is only going to show more strength 20% ipc is far better than intels 5% increase as of late...
> 
> right track but not there yet but definitely something to be excited for


I never said it was a loss. I said it was not fully implemented to its potential. I am 100% right on that. I really get tired of people making lame defenses for everything that is not up to par with AMD. Is their honor at stake?? Critical analysis leads to improvement. Yes'm boss leads nowhere. You hit the nail on the head when you said this implementation on Kaveri is very young. I would call it immature not young. I don't like to be on bleeding edge,simply because things are not right on bleeding edge. I will wait until Excavator comes out for a better implemented more robust outcome.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Let's deal with your numbers 16 gb/sec on pci express 2.0 vs 23.75 Gb/sec on pci express 3.0. Can that
> brain of yours realize it should be 32 gb/sec on pci express 3.0 since pci express 3.0 is twice as fast? So obviously they implemented pci express 3.0 without sufficient lanes. The fact is that this is true otherwise
> Excavator would have the same number of pci express lanes as steamroller. Excavator will have additiona
> pci express lanes. Case closed. Geez you are stubborn and wrong.


please tell me where you getting this information.

Speed

Per lane (each direction):

v1.x: 250 MB/s (2.5 GT/s)
v2.x: 500 MB/s (5 GT/s)
v3.0: 985 MB/s (8 GT/s)
v4.0: 1969 MB/s (16 GT/s)

So, a 16-lane slot (each direction):

v1.x: 4 GB/s (40 GT/s)
v2.x: 8 GB/s (80 GT/s)
v3.0: 15.75 GB/s (128 GT/s)
v4.0: 31.51 GB/s (256 GT/s)

(source) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

Home > Newsroom > FAQs > FAQ - PCI Express 3.0

PCI Express
PCI Express® 3.0
Frequently Asked Questions

Download PDF version of the FAQ (41.2k PDF)

Questions

Q: What is PCI Express (PCIe®) 3.0? What are the requirements for this evolution of the PCIe architecture?

Q: What is the bit rate for PCIe 3.0 and how does it compare to prior generations of PCIe?

Q: How does the PCIe 3.0 8GT/s "double" the PCIe 2.0 5GT/s bit rate?

Q: Do PCIe 3.0 specifications only deliver a signaling rate increase?

Q: Will PCIe 3.0 products be compatible with existing PCIe 1.x and PCIe 2.x products?

Q: What are the PCIe protocol extensions, and how do they improve PCIe interconnect performance?

Q: When was the PCIe 3.0 specifications made available?

Q: What is 8b/10b encoding?

Q: What is scrambling? How does scrambling impact the PCIe 3.0 architecture?

Q: What is equalization? How is Tx equalization different from Rx equalization? What is trainable equalization?

Q: Why is a new generation of PCIe needed?

Q: What are the initial target applications for PCIe 3.0?

Q: Does PCIe 3.0 enable greater power delivery to cards?

Q: Is PCIe 3.0 more expensive to implement than PCIe 2.x?

Q: Has there been a new compliance specification developed for PCIe 3.0?
Answers

Q: What is PCI Express (PCIe®) 3.0? What are the requirements for this evolution of the PCIe architecture?

A: PCIe 3.0 is the next evolution of the ubiquitous and general-purpose PCI Express I/O standard. At 8GT/s bit rate, the interconnect performance bandwidth is doubled over PCIe 2.0, while preserving compatibility with software and mechanical interfaces. The key requirement for evolving the PCIe architecture is to continue to provide performance scaling consistent with bandwidth demand from leading applications with low cost, low power and minimal perturbations at the platform level. One of the main factors in the wide adoption of the PCIe architecture is its sensitivity to high-volume manufacturing materials and tolerances such as FR4 boards, low-cost clock sources, connectors and so on. In providing full compatibility, the same topologies and channel reach as in PCIe 2.0 are supported for both client and server configurations. Another important requirement is the manufacturability of products using the most widely available silicon process technology. For the PCIe 3.0 architecture, PCI-SIG believes a 65nm process or better will be required to optimize on silicon area and power.

Q: What is the bit rate for PCIe 3.0 and how does it compare to prior generations of PCIe?

A: The bit rate for PCIe 3.0 is 8GT/s. This bit rate represents the most optimum tradeoff between manufacturability, cost, power and compatibility.
The PCI-SIG analysis covered multiple topologies and configurations, including servers. All of these studies confirmed the feasibility of 8GT/s signaling with low-cost enablers and with minimal increases in power, silicon die size and complexity.

Q: How does the PCIe 3.0 8GT/s "double" the PCIe 2.0 5GT/s bit rate?
A: The PCIe 2.0 bit rate is specified at 5GT/s, but with the 20 percent performance overhead of the 8b/10b encoding scheme, the delivered bandwidth is actually 4Gbps. PCIe 3.0 removes the requirement for 8b/10b encoding and uses a more efficient 128b/130b encoding scheme instead. By removing this overhead, the interconnect bandwidth can be doubled to 8Gbps with the implementation of the PCIe 3.0 specification. This bandwidth is the same as an interconnect running at 10GT/s with the 8b/10b encoding overhead. In this way, the PCIe 3.0 specifications deliver the same effective bandwidth, but without the prohibitive penalties associated with 10GT/s signaling, such as PHY design complexity and increased silicon die size and power. The following table summarizes the bit rate and approximate bandwidths for the various generations of the PCIe architecture:

PCIe architecture Raw bit rate Interconnect bandwidth Bandwidth per lane per direction Total bandwidth for x16 link
PCIe 1.x 2.5GT/s 2Gbps ~250MB/s ~8GB/s
PCIe 2.x 5.0GT/s 4Gbps ~500MB/s ~16GB/s
PCIe 3.0 8.0GT/s 8Gbps ~1GB/s ~32GB/s

Total bandwidth represents the aggregate interconnect bandwidth in both directions.

(source) http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie3.0_faq/

I am not wrong.. you are being stupidly narrow minded. do some research on the pcie 3.0 standards.

leave EX out of this, it has absolutely no bearing on this right now. SR hasn't even been released.

If you look at the board layouts that actually are actually available on newegg for the pcie configurations it looks like they are trying a different route then Intel.

full 16x lanes for both pcie 3.0 and pcie 2.0 (in some cases, budget cases only get 4x or whatever) Provided this doesn't make micro stutter worse in crossfire
you are giving your gpus WAY more bandwidth then before.

how are you seeing this as a negative? why are you being so ignorant to the fact that there are advancements being made in this platform that differ from the competition in ways that LOOK more appealing to the end user.
with the implementation i am seeing on these Fm2+ boards I have no doubt that AMD will be trying edge the advance on this field. if AMD can do full pcie in the next gen Great! (if they can get the 44 or 52 pcie 3.0 lanes everything will be gravy on EX )


----------



## rpsgc

Sheesh people. Off-topic much?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Per lane (each direction):
> 
> v1.x: 250 MB/s (2.5 GT/s)
> v2.x: 500 MB/s (5 GT/s)
> v3.0: 985 MB/s (8 GT/s)
> v4.0: 1969 MB/s (16 GT/s)
> 
> So, a 16-lane slot (each direction):
> 
> v1.x: 4 GB/s (40 GT/s)
> v2.x: 8 GB/s (80 GT/s)
> v3.0: 15.75 GB/s (128 GT/s)
> v4.0: 31.51 GB/s (256 GT/s)
> 
> (source) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express


I think people get confused because normally you talk about total bandwidth when discussing PCI-E, but when people look at numbers they often look at single direction numbers and go from there. So a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot has 31.5GB/s of bandwidth total, most people round to 32GB/s for ease of typing and discussion. Many people think this 32GB is each way when it is really combined both ways.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rpsgc*
> 
> Sheesh people. Off-topic much?


Go away. On-topic discussion is overrated









besides, we have great discussions in this thread about all sorts of processor related technical issues. It goes back on topic the moment any Steamroller related info comes to light. When that news gets old we go back to more interesting discussions.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I think people get confused because normally you talk about total bandwidth when discussing PCI-E, but when people look at numbers they often look at single direction numbers and go from there. So a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot has 31.5GB/s of bandwidth total, most people round to 32GB/s for ease of typing and discussion. Many people think this 32GB is each way when it is really combined both ways.
> Go away. On-topic discussion is overrated
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> besides, we have great discussions in this thread about all sorts of processor related technical issues. It goes back on topic the moment any Steamroller related info comes to light. When that news gets old we go back to more interesting discussions.


good call, didn't notice that initially. however all comparison i made are on the same metric.

In a post script of that debate, I do agree with a few point Os has made, potentially from a different point of view, however.

I agree that there is a immature platform, however leveling it on the cpu's is not something I agree with.

I think Pcie 3.0 its self is a little immature. by all rights an accounts it doesn't seem like we need it yet.

but it could easily become a requirement once 4K becomes the majority resolution standard.
with the majority of the market dominated by 1080p at this point in time it doesn't serve you much of an advantage.

I also agree with a pure GPU benching between a LGA 1150 and a FM2+ to compare the implementation (8x/8x on 1150 and 16x 3.0 / 16x 2.0 on some Fm2+ boards)

I for one am interested to see how the cross generation of pcie will match against a pair of slower Pcie 3.0.

in my mind i can't see it mattering a whole lot, but i could be wrong.


----------



## Konbad

i thought we were going to see roadmaps at this event


----------



## krisz9

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> i thought we were going to see roadmaps at this event


Wait another 15 min. Hopefully some more info will be revealed in closing. Amd is only opening and closing. Rest is different aspects of incorporating amd tech in different things pretty much.


----------



## krisz9

uploaded from my phone. roadmap.


----------



## MrJava

2014 Client roadmap as expected:
- Kaveri
- Beema
- Mullins

Edit: looks like mobile only
15W Kaveri and 2W SDP Mullins look very interesting.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *krisz9*
> 
> 
> 
> uploaded from my phone. roadmap.


----------



## kapulek

Official version here: http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Releases-2014-Mobile-APU-Details-Beema-and-Mullins-Cut-TDPs


----------



## MrJava

Thanks did Mark Papermaster's presentation have to cut early or something? I don't see why, he should have been presenting this stuff. A 2X perf/watt improvement is astounding!
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kapulek*
> 
> Official version here: http://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Releases-2014-Mobile-APU-Details-Beema-and-Mullins-Cut-TDPs


----------



## MacLeod

Mobile. LOL so we're gonna find out about everything EXCEPT the FX line.









Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


----------



## MrJava

New desktop roadmap is available. Shows Piledriver FX through 2014 (and Kaveri of course).
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjAxMjA5fENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Mobile. LOL so we're gonna find out about everything EXCEPT the FX line.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Embedding into thread:


----------



## Konbad

oh well looks like AMD really wants to flog the dead horse


----------



## Kuivamaa

Warsaw is 12 or 16 it says but I assume it means dual socket configuration, a pair of hexas and a pair of octos. I guess we are getting a PD refresh and then nobody knows, as expected. They may scrap it and go unified socket with multicore APU or bring some sort of SMT on EX or what have you.


----------



## MrJava

No that's one socket for the MCM chips with two dies each with 4 modules (so up to 16 cores per socket). All the socket G34 chips are MCM btw, even the 4,6 and 8 core.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Warsaw is 12 or 16 it says but I assume it means dual socket configuration, a pair of hexas and a pair of octos. I guess we are getting a PD refresh and then nobody knows, as expected. They may scrap it and go unified socket with multicore APU or bring some sort of SMT on EX or what have you.


----------



## MrJava

Its not they want to, just that they don't have anything else available at the moment. Keep in mind AMD has been through a large restructuring laying off employees left and right. Its probably the reason for the Kaveri delay.

In any case, it looks like they made the right decisions on where to focus their energy. Kaveri looks very competitive and the upcoming Beema and Mullins look incredible as well.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> oh well looks like AMD really wants to flog the dead horse


----------



## Roph

Bah. I don't want a chip that has a pointless weak built in GPU that I will not use!

Steamroller FX please, either 8 cores and shrunk die, or similar die and ~12 cores perhaps.


----------



## MrJava

Wait a year or so ...

Edit:
Is it possible to overclock the big G34 Opterons? Does anyone 'round here do it?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Roph*
> 
> Bah. I don't want a chip that has a pointless weak built in GPU that I will not use!
> 
> Steamroller FX please, either 8 cores and shrunk die, or similar die and ~12 cores perhaps.


----------



## MacLeod

Well I guess that settles it. No Steamroller on anything but weak sauce APU's.









Man that stinks. Guess I'm gonna have to jump sides.


----------



## Konbad

im ready to upgrade now.. im waiting to see broadwell 5770k and haswell-e 8 core cpu's before i make a purchase.. but it looks like the next PC is going to be intel as well maybe AMD will have something for my next upgrade in 2 - 3 years


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Wait a year or so ...
> 
> Edit:
> Is it possible to overclock the big G34 Opterons? Does anyone 'round here do it?


Yes and no. It is possible if you have the software to directly control the PLL on the motherboard. But almost no board has that software, and the ones that do generally only get an extra 10fsb or so before things start to get unstable. So in all practicality, no you cant.


----------



## MrJava

Voting with your wallet is the only way to get what you want.








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Well I guess that settles it. No Steamroller on anything but weak sauce APU's.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Man that stinks. Guess I'm gonna have to jump sides.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> im ready to upgrade now.. im waiting to see broadwell 5770k and haswell-e 8 core cpu's before i make a purchase.. but it looks like the next PC is going to be intel as well maybe AMD will have something for my next upgrade in 2 - 3 years


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Voting with your wallet is the only way to get what you want.


Yeah Ive always wanted to play with a 2011 system. Guess now is as good a time as any to pick up a new IB-E rig.


----------



## Konbad

Thats the plan


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Is it possible to overclock the big G34 Opterons? Does anyone 'round here do it?


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Yes and no. It is possible if you have the software to directly control the PLL on the motherboard. But almost no board has that software, and the ones that do generally only get an extra 10fsb or so before things start to get unstable. So in all practicality, no you cant.


I believe the ES G34 Optys can overclock surprisingly well, given a compatible board; I've seen them up to 4ghz on all 16 cores while being stable enough to fold. Power consumption can get rather ridiculous though, especially with four of them.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> I believe the ES G34 Optys can overclock surprisingly well, given a compatible board; I've seen them up to 4ghz on all 16 cores while being stable enough to fold. Power consumption can get rather ridiculous though, especially with four of them.


Yes ES ones can, and do OC well. This is because they have unlocked multipliers. Overclocking by upping the fsb through the PLL doesnt work out because it overclocks all parts and other areas become unstable quickly. Good luck finding readily available ES Opterons though


----------



## charlesquik

Ive seen many thread about steamroller and seem like a great improvement but I fear Intel will still be the king


----------



## Konbad

even if intel has maxed out its arch they can do an AMD and keep throwing more cores at people


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Voting with your wallet is the only way to get what you want.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah Ive always wanted to play with a 2011 system. Guess now is as good a time as any to pick up a new IB-E rig.
Click to expand...

I've played with one and I still don't regret going FX 8350 over 3930k. That's how boring OCing was on 2011 compared to FX.


----------



## Konbad

what matters is the tech behind the cpu you buy not how it overclocks TBH..


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've played with one and I still don't regret going FX 8350 over 3930k. That's how boring OCing was on 2011 compared to FX.


Yeah there is some truth in that. AMD chips have always had more buttons to push and dials to turn so I've always thought there were a lot more fun.

But with more and more games coming out that are pushing the GPU demands, I want to upgrade to something with more horsepower because I'll probably be upping my GPU horsepower as well as investing in a 2560x1440 monitor in the future and it's these higher resolutions and higher end GPU's where the Intel chips start pulling away. So if AMD is going to come out with anything that much faster than my 8150, I can't see any other option.


----------



## DapperDan795

I feel the same way that some of you do. I have an Fx-8350 currently and was really hoping for some more news on AM3+. For now I will hold on to what I have. I just don't want to switch to Intel. Hopefully they have a suprise hidden somewhere


----------



## cresuso

So the amd dev summit is over right ? Im considering going fx 8350 from my phenom 965 cause bf4 isnt running decent all set to low. I mean do you guys think its a good idea or i should wait perhaps they wiml announce a steamroller cpu on am3+ ?


----------



## MacLeod

Maybe but if I had to bet, I'd put money on them not doing anything. MAYBE something with Excavator on AM4 but I kinda think AMD might be thinking their future is APU's, video cards and consoles so no reason to waste money on 5% of the market (us) at least for now.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Maybe but if I had to bet, I'd put money on them not doing anything. MAYBE something with Excavator on AM4 but I kinda think AMD might be thinking their future is APU's, video cards and consoles so no reason to waste money on 5% of the market (us) at least for now.


They talk a lot about how great HSA will be. They might be thinking everyone will want an APU over a CPU with some additional normal cores. The graphics core on the APU would be used for beating normal CPU cores for various processing tasks.


----------



## NaroonGTX

There won't be an AM4 since AMD canned the 1090FX platform a long time ago. I'd say if you're thinking of picking up an 8320/8350, wait a little while longer because there might be even further price drops. We might see a new batch of Vishera's that have RCM enabled too, but who knows... Even that's unlikely. It seems a lot of the rumors of 9000FX being the last chips on AM3+ were true.


----------



## Konbad

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cresuso*
> 
> So the amd dev summit is over right ? Im considering going fx 8350 from my phenom 965 cause bf4 isnt running decent all set to low. I mean do you guys think its a good idea or i should wait perhaps they wiml announce a steamroller cpu on am3+ ?


how much of an OC have you got.. i mean 8350 is faster but not lightspeed increase if your CPU is OC well


----------



## MrJava

I'd hate to make you do more waiting, but but wait till Mantle benchmarks come out for BF4. You might have some more enthusiasm for the good old FX-83XX CPUs.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Yeah, they are already teasing that under mantle FX-8350 is having a blast. Interesting times, we'll know soon enough If it is true or just a marketing stunt.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cresuso*
> 
> So the amd dev summit is over right ? Im considering going fx 8350 from my phenom 965 cause bf4 isnt running decent all set to low. I mean do you guys think its a good idea or i should wait perhaps they wiml announce a steamroller cpu on am3+ ?


Go for it. BF 4 as it stands will use 50 to 80 % on all 8 cores during multiplayer when I run mine @ 5 Ghz. .
You will need a better PSU than you have and a 240mm clc would be the minimum for trying to clock above 4.8 ghz
I get decent frame rates on ultra settings at 1920 x 1200 with a 7970 at stock, so you should be in good shape with the 7950.


----------



## cresuso

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> how much of an OC have you got.. i mean 8350 is faster but not lightspeed increase if your CPU is OC well


I hit 4Ghz, but even when setting to low (even lower than game settings allow, through cfg file), i can't get more than 55 fps on some maps).

@cssorkinman

Ok thanks im gonna order an fx 8350. What psu would you suggest ? And what is a 240mm clc?


----------



## deepor

"CLC" means "closed-loop-cooler". It's those water coolers that are completely assembled, where you won't have to do any maintenance. 240mm means the radiator is sized to use two 120mm fans side by side.


----------



## cresuso

Oh ok thanks. I've checked mantle, looks very interesting to me as i play bf4 a lot, and thats main reason i wanna upgrade to fx8350


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cresuso*
> 
> I hit 4Ghz, but even when setting to low (even lower than game settings allow, through cfg file), i can't get more than 55 fps on some maps).
> 
> @cssorkinman
> 
> Ok thanks im gonna order an fx 8350. What psu would you suggest ? And what is a 240mm clc?


You could go with the 8320 instead if you wish to save some money, but that's up to you. As for a psu, a good quality 650 watt would be fine for one graphics card and a mild overclock on the cpu. I like Seasonic gold rated psu's. If you plan on crossfire in the future , I'd go for a 750 watt or better, that's my opinion. This is a good value http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151132
A 240 mm clc is a Closed Loop Cooler, like the corsair H-100 or the thermaltake water extreme 2.0.
I'm not familiar with your cooler, but it should be fine at speeds up to 4.6 ghz on that chip.

Let me know how you like your new cpu


----------



## cresuso

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> You could go with the 8320 instead if you wish to save some money, but that's up to you. As for a psu, a good quality 650 watt would be fine for one graphics card and a mild overclock on the cpu. I like Seasonic gold rated psu's. If you plan on crossfire in the future , I'd go for a 750 watt or better, that's my opinion. This is a good value http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151132
> A 240 mm clc is a Closed Loop Cooler, like the corsair H-100 or the thermaltake water extreme 2.0.
> I'm not familiar with your cooler, but it should be fine at speeds up to 4.6 ghz on that chip.
> 
> Let me know how you like your new cpu


Btw, the reason why you advise me a new psu is if i want to overclock higher than 4.6~ right ? Because if i'm not wrong, i think both my 965 and 8350 have a 125W tdp, and mine is currently running at @4Ghz with 1.5 V. I think i'll wait until i get it and start overclocking before deciding if i buy a clc


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've played with one and I still don't regret going FX 8350 over 3930k. That's how boring OCing was on 2011 compared to FX.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah there is some truth in that. AMD chips have always had more buttons to push and dials to turn so I've always thought there were a lot more fun.
> 
> But with more and more games coming out that are pushing the GPU demands, I want to upgrade to something with more horsepower because I'll probably be upping my GPU horsepower as well as investing in a 2560x1440 monitor in the future and it's these higher resolutions and higher end GPU's where the Intel chips start pulling away. So if AMD is going to come out with anything that much faster than my 8150, I can't see any other option.
Click to expand...

I run 1440p monitor in my sig rig. FX 8350 at 5ghz is not a problem unless I am playing a game like Starcraft 2, but even 5ghz 2700k is a problem for Starcraft 2.

Honestly I would wait for FX 8350 price drops and then just get one of those. As I've been saying in other threads, the gaming landscape has already changed and it is going to continue to change in the FX's favor.

Remember how abysmal FX 8350 look on review? If it won a benchmark and was close to locked i5s it was a big surprise. Now it is trading blows with 4770k.

We went from this:


To this:


Games have changed, PD has gotten a lot better at gaming and AMD didn't even have to change the chip.

I wouldn't be surprised if your FX 8150 was also competitive with 3570k in BF4 honestly. Things have definitely changed a lot.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Roph*
> 
> Bah. I don't want a chip that has a pointless weak built in GPU that I will not use!
> 
> Steamroller FX please, either 8 cores and shrunk die, or similar die and ~12 cores perhaps.


A universal translation layer would make that weak gpu give the APU the power to destroy any CPU on the market though you don't want Kaveri with such a layer to kick 15 ivy cores








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> even if intel has maxed out its arch they can do an AMD and keep throwing more cores at people


This of course gets back to them once IPS takes over due to AMD's IPC and node improvements.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cresuso*
> 
> Btw, the reason why you advise me a new psu is if i want to overclock higher than 4.6~ right ? Because if i'm not wrong, i think both my 965 and 8350 have a 125W tdp, and mine is currently running at @4Ghz with 1.5 V. I think i'll wait until i get it and start overclocking before deciding if i buy a clc


They are at the same thermal design power rating , yes . It's confusing, but the 8350 will use a ton more power than the 965 when you are pushing it, like BF4 will.
This link has an example of the differences http://versus.com/en/amd-fx-8350-black-edition-vs-amd-phenom-ii-x4-965
In my opinion, you will need a better psu if you go with the 8350 with or without an overclock, 400 watts is cutting it thin .
By all means, wait to buy different cooling, you may get by just fine with what you have.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Konbad*
> 
> what matters is the tech behind the cpu you buy not how it overclocks TBH..


Then why are you in an overclocker forum?


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I run 1440p monitor in my sig rig. FX 8350 at 5ghz is not a problem unless I am playing a game like Starcraft 2, but even 5ghz 2700k is a problem for Starcraft 2.
> 
> Honestly I would wait for FX 8350 price drops and then just get one of those. As I've been saying in other threads, the gaming landscape has already changed and it is going to continue to change in the FX's favor.
> 
> Remember how abysmal FX 8350 look on review? If it won a benchmark and was close to locked i5s it was a big surprise. Now it is trading blows with 4770k.
> 
> Games have changed, PD has gotten a lot better at gaming and AMD didn't even have to change the chip.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised if your FX 8150 was also competitive with 3570k in BF4 honestly. Things have definitely changed a lot.


Yeah I hear ya. Truth be told, my 8150 is handling gaming duties just fine. The only thing I've had to turn down so far is TressFX on Tomb Raider because it kept dipping into the low 30's. With it off, its in the 60's+. Dont know if thats a CPU issue or not though. Everything else so far including Crysis 3 is running at max settings (I dont use AA though) with no problem. Plus my 8150 is running stable enough at 4.5 that I can have CnQ enabled so my idle cores sit there at .8V and 1.4 GHz so rarely am I pushing as much voltage as you would think.

I really dont want to shell out the cash for a new motherboard and CPU and I REALLY dont want to have to re-install my OS so even though I talk a big game, chances are pretty good Ill just end up with an 8350 for the 15% IPC improvement and then overclock its guts out and let that ride for a while.

Heck I could go with a 8350, SSD and fresh new power supply so I could retire my 4 year old Corsair for the same cash I could get a i5 and new mobo. Once I get over being butthurt, thats probably what Ill do.


----------



## bbond007

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> The only thing I've had to turn down so far is TressFX on Tomb Raider because it kept dipping into the low 30's. With it off, its in the 60's+. Dont know if thats a CPU issue or not though.


I think its not a CPU issue but a limitation of your video board. I still get 90fps with that setting enabled on my [email protected] 1080p

I think adding an additional GTX 670 will fix the issue.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I run 1440p monitor in my sig rig. FX 8350 at 5ghz is not a problem unless I am playing a game like Starcraft 2, but even 5ghz 2700k is a problem for Starcraft 2.
> 
> Honestly I would wait for FX 8350 price drops and then just get one of those. As I've been saying in other threads, the gaming landscape has already changed and it is going to continue to change in the FX's favor.
> 
> Remember how abysmal FX 8350 look on review? If it won a benchmark and was close to locked i5s it was a big surprise. Now it is trading blows with 4770k.
> 
> Games have changed, PD has gotten a lot better at gaming and AMD didn't even have to change the chip.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised if your FX 8150 was also competitive with 3570k in BF4 honestly. Things have definitely changed a lot.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah I hear ya. Truth be told, my 8150 is handling gaming duties just fine. The only thing I've had to turn down so far is TressFX on Tomb Raider because it kept dipping into the low 30's. With it off, its in the 60's+. Dont know if thats a CPU issue or not though. Everything else so far including Crysis 3 is running at max settings (I dont use AA though) with no problem. Plus my 8150 is running stable enough at 4.5 that I can have CnQ enabled so my idle cores sit there at .8V and 1.4 GHz so rarely am I pushing as much voltage as you would think.
> 
> I really dont want to shell out the cash for a new motherboard and CPU and I REALLY dont want to have to re-install my OS so even though I talk a big game, chances are pretty good Ill just end up with an 8350 for the 15% IPC improvement and then overclock its guts out and let that ride for a while.
> 
> Heck I could go with a 8350, SSD and fresh new power supply so I could retire my 4 year old Corsair for the same cash I could get a i5 and new mobo. Once I get over being butthurt, thats probably what Ill do.
Click to expand...

Running TressFX without an AMD GPU is like running PhysX on CPU. Yeah it's a CPU bottleneck but it would more than likely mess up any CPU you throw at it.

If you had an AMD GPU it would run on the GPU but it'd still hurt your frame rate.

The optimal solution is to wait for Mantle and HSA so you can run TressfX on your APU's GPU or a spare GCN CPU and have your main GPU do all the rendering.

It will be good! We can finally go back to when PhysX ran on the part of your computer that wasn't bottlenecking your gaming rig as opposed to shifting more calculations onto the overburdened GPU. I'm pretty excited about it personally, but I'd want to be able to have things set up so I could say move my 7970 to a GPGPU card in the rig, buy an R9 390, and then carry on. HSA is gonna make that possible.

I just really hope AMD can follow through with a good platform that still gives me great multi-thread in traditional workloads while letting me rip with lots of GPUs.


----------



## MacLeod

Ah good to know. It wasn't a huge hit. The majority of the game ran just fine but every once in a while it would dip down on certain scenes. What was weird was that it did it mostly on the cut scenes.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Running TressFX without an AMD GPU is like running PhysX on CPU.


TressFX uses OpenCL/DirectCompute, so it works with all vendors. As long as that particular GPU supports OpenCL/DirectCompute and is on windows.


----------



## Konbad

you guys heard? R9 290 is to R9 290x as PC9800SE was the the 9800Pro


----------



## bbond007

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Ah good to know. It wasn't a huge hit. The majority of the game ran just fine but every once in a while it would dip down on certain scenes. What was weird was that it did it mostly on the cut scenes.
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


TressFX drops my framerate from 169 to 91. CPU usage does not seem to be any different but that's just a guess.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've played with one and I still don't regret going FX 8350 over 3930k. That's how boring OCing was on 2011 compared to FX.


My 2011 motherboard is never boring. There is always something... I tried some new bios recently, anything above F3u (beta) and my
video card stops working, the board refuses to acknowledge its existence. Learned some interesting stuff about motherboard bios:es
and whatnot, as downgrading the bios from F4 and beyond was far from trivial. All official tools refuses to do it, and when you update
to F4 or higher it automatically overwrites the backup bios. Sooo... yeah.

And Intel chips are stupidly expensive, so I got a ES Xeon for cheap on Ebay. Not recommended, much stuff doesn't work as expected.
So never a boring moment there


----------



## Seronx

FM2+ will not be the only Steamroller platform coming in the next couple of years.

Two platforms that will use quad-DDR4(4x64) and another platform that will use quad-LPDDR4(4x64).

All three being Steamroller-derived, two desktop+server platforms and one mobile platform.


----------



## NaroonGTX

With an Excavator-based APU arriving in Q1 2015, why on Earth would any SR-based products launch after that?

Where did you even get this from? Absolutely nothing points to any of that happening.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> With an Excavator-based APU arriving in Q1 2015, why on Earth would any SR-based products launch after that?


Excavator is Steamroller based, so it is Steamroller-derived.


----------



## Kuivamaa

And steamroller is piledriver derived then?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Excavator is Steamroller based, so it is Steamroller-derived.


I guess Excavator is a part of the Bulldozer platform then, since it's technically Bulldozer-derived.

Wut joo say, it maek no sense!

We don't know anything about Excavator besides the fact that it exists, will exist, and will be in Carrizo. To claim it is a mere derivative of SR is nonsense.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> And steamroller is piledriver derived then?


Steamroller is part of the 15h family, and has a module approach similar to Bulldozer and Piledriver. After which is where the similarities start to become fuzzy.

Steamroller peak IPC = Excavator peak IPC
Steamroller/Excavator peak IPC = 2.2x Bulldozer/Piledriver peak IPC.

Steamroller is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, but it isn't architecturally derived from Bulldozer or Piledriver. Excavator is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, and is architecturally Steamroller-derived.

What can differentiate Steamroller and Excavator is;
TSMC or GlobalFoundries
Node
Instruction Set Extensions
Buffer sizes/lengths.

Kaveri = TSMC28HP


----------



## NaroonGTX

No evidence at all to suggest Kaveri was done at TSMC.

Steamroller is just another evolution for the BD uarch. It's as "derived" from PD as PD was derived from BD. It's not as if they threw away all the work they did with PD and started from scratch with SR. I also have no idea what you're trying to get at when you say stuff like:
Quote:


> Steamroller peak IPC = Excavator peak IPC
> Steamroller/Excavator peak IPC = 2.2x Bulldozer/Piledriver peak IPC.


Just what?


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller is part of the 15h family, and has a module approach similar to Bulldozer and Piledriver. After which is where the similarities start to become fuzzy.
> 
> Steamroller peak IPC = Excavator peak IPC
> Steamroller/Excavator peak IPC = 2.2x Bulldozer/Piledriver peak IPC.
> 
> Steamroller is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, but it isn't architecturally derived from Bulldozer or Piledriver. Excavator is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, and is architecturally Steamroller-derived.
> 
> What can differentiate Steamroller and Excavator is;
> TSMC or GlobalFoundries
> Node
> Instruction Set Extensions
> Buffer sizes/lengths.
> 
> Kaveri = TSMC28HP


2.2xBulldozer would put Kaveri inline with extreme edition i7. I'm skeptical but hopeful.


----------



## MrJava

Lol, he's at it again.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> No evidence at all to suggest Kaveri was done at TSMC.
> 
> Steamroller is just another evolution for the BD uarch. It's as "derived" from PD as PD was derived from BD. It's not as if they threw away all the work they did with PD and started from scratch with SR. I also have no idea what you're trying to get at when you say stuff like:
> Just what?


I think he is implying that Carrizo-Excavator may be done either at Global or TSMC depending on whose advanced node process is more mature.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Just what?


(clock multiplier) x (bus speed) x (fireball tech)
Kaveri-M/A10-6750M
7-9 x 100 x 2 = 1400-1800 MHz
Kaveri-D/A10-7850K
18.5-20.5 x 100 x 2 = 3700-4100 MHz

4 Cores * 1.85 GHz * 16
vs
4 Cores * 3.7 GHz * 8

In your opinion, if you are aiming for clock speed orientated people which one would you choose?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I think he is implying that Carrizo-Excavator may be done either at Global or TSMC depending on whose advanced node process is more mature.


Kaveri-Steamroller is done only at TSMC, there is no signs of AMD ever producing something on 28nm at GlobalFoundries. STMicroelectronics replaced AMD for #1 customer, which left AMD to only be able to produce at TSMC.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> (clock multiplier) x (bus speed) x (fireball tech)
> Kaveri-M/A10-6750M
> 7-9 x 100 x 2 = 1400-1800 MHz
> Kaveri-D/A10-7850K
> 18.5-20.5 x 100 x 2 = 3700-4100 MHz
> 
> 4 Cores * 1.85 GHz * 16
> vs
> 4 Cores * 3.7 GHz * 8
> 
> In your opinion, if you are aiming for clock speed orientated people which one would you choose?
> Kaveri-Steamroller is done only at TSMC, there is no signs of AMD ever producing something on 28nm at GlobalFoundries. STMicroelectronics replaced AMD for #1 customer.


Your pevious post seemed to state that Kaveri and Carrizo will have the same IPC . That can not be true as Excavators design is supposed to give greater throughput not just thermal and power reduction.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Your pevious post seemed to state that Kaveri and Carrizo will have the same IPC.


Kaveri and Carrizo will have the same IPC, but not the same IPS. Think of Agena and Deneb, and not of Zambezi and Vishera.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That can not be true as Excavators design is supposed to give greater throughput not just thermal and power reduction.


Excavator's adds AVX2, BMI2, MOVBE, RDRAND, etc. Where as Steamroller only has AMD specific versions.


----------



## MrJava

I'm waiting on some real info on Steamroller from a reliable source. I will disclose if possible.

So far what I can reveal most of you already know
- doubled decode has lead to good improvement on ops/cycle
- steamroller has been optimized to better detect and handle loops
- can handle 4 reg-to-reg MOV's a cycle (double from BD/PD)
- can do 2 stores per cycle (double from BD/PD)
- FPU has added shuffle unit. Possible lower latency in various x87 and SSE instructions (still confirming)

I've asked about cache latencies and bandwidth as well.

No figures but you can get an idea that Steamroller is not just a minor improvement like PD. I won't make any guesses on IPC improvement.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri and Carrizo will have the same IPC, but not the same IPS.
> Excavator's adds AVX2, BMI2, MOVBE, RDRAND, etc. Where as Steamroller only has AMD specific versions.


I doubt the veracity of that speculation. I am also doubtful about TMSC being the foundry for Kaveri. I will inquire independently.


----------



## Nitrogannex

I've been hearing Steamroller has been canceled, at least the "FX" Line

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/19/amd-kills-off-big-cores-kaveri-steamroller-and-excavator/

Anyone want to weigh in?

I was going to get a good FM2+ Board and wait for an 8 or 10 core, but now that looks like it's not going to happen


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> - FPU has added shuffle unit. Possible lower latency in various x87 and SSE instructions (still confirming)


Bulldozer/Piledriver:
P0: floating point add, mul, div, convert, shuffle, shift
P1: floating point add, mul, div, shuffle, shift
P2: move, integer add, boolean
P3: move, integer add, boolean, store

Steamroller/Excavator:
P0: floating point add, mul, div, convert, integer add, boolean
P1: floating point add, mul, div, integer add, boolean
P2: move, shuffle, shift, store

^My guess.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Nitrogannex*
> 
> I've been hearing Steamroller has been canceled, at least the "FX" Line


The FX/server line is waiting for SOI. The new cycle is to do Low Power libraries then High Performance libraries.


----------



## Nitrogannex

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> - FPU has added shuffle unit. Possible lower latency in various x87 and SSE instructions (still confirming)
> 
> 
> 
> Bulldozer/Piledriver:
> P0: floating point add, mul, div, convert, shuffle, shift
> P1: floating point add, mul, div, shuffle, shift
> P2: move, integer add, boolean
> P3: move, integer add, boolean, store
> 
> Steamroller/Excavator:
> P0: floating point add, mul, div, convert, integer add, boolean
> P1: floating point add, mul, div, integer add, boolean
> P2: move, shuffle, shift, store
> 
> ^My guess.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Nitrogannex*
> 
> I've been hearing Steamroller has been canceled, at least the "FX" Line
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The FX/server line is waiting for SOI. The new cycle is to do Low Power libraries then High Performance libraries.
Click to expand...

Also, by chance I found you on that AMD "boulder" thread for the 20 core chip

Is that dead in the water?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Nitrogannex*
> 
> Also, by chance I found you on that AMD "boulder" thread for the 20 core chip
> 
> Is that dead in the water?


Boulder has been cancelled but its successor Austin is still coming.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Nitrogannex*
> 
> I've been hearing Steamroller has been canceled, at least the "FX" Line
> 
> http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/19/amd-kills-off-big-cores-kaveri-steamroller-and-excavator/
> 
> Anyone want to weigh in?
> 
> I was going to get a good FM2+ Board and wait for an 8 or 10 core, but now that looks like it's not going to happen


There is a reasonable possibilty that in 2015 AMD may release a 6 or 8 core apu on FM2+ . Mind you this is not a certainty but a good possibility.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Nitrogannex*
> 
> I've been hearing Steamroller has been canceled, at least the "FX" Line
> 
> http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/19/amd-kills-off-big-cores-kaveri-steamroller-and-excavator/
> 
> Anyone want to weigh in?
> 
> I was going to get a good FM2+ Board and wait for an 8 or 10 core, but now that looks like it's not going to happen


Makes sense as of now,FM2+ has PCI-E3.0,faster ram support, improved USB 3.0 and SATA performance over Trinity.
AMD would at the least have to give us a revised chipset for a 2014 FX series as the 990FX is getting be dated compared to Intel's chipsets.
I've heard rumors of a FM2+ 6 core so that's not going to surface now either?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> Makes sense as of now,FM2+ has PCI-E3.0,faster ram support, improved USB 3.0 and SATA performance over Trinity.
> AMD would at the least have to give us a revised chipset for a 2014 FX series as the 990FX is getting be dated compared to Intel's chipsets.
> I've heard rumors of a FM2+ 6 core so that's not going to surface now either?


Wrong answer. FX line when it comes back as new technology will be on FM2+ or FM3 socket.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Steamroller is part of the 15h family, and has a module approach similar to Bulldozer and Piledriver. After which is where the similarities start to become fuzzy.
> 
> Steamroller peak IPC = Excavator peak IPC
> Steamroller/Excavator peak IPC = 2.2x Bulldozer/Piledriver peak IPC.
> 
> Steamroller is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, but it isn't architecturally derived from Bulldozer or Piledriver. Excavator is 15h derived, bulldozer module derived, and is architecturally Steamroller-derived.
> 
> What can differentiate Steamroller and Excavator is;
> TSMC or GlobalFoundries
> Node
> Instruction Set Extensions
> Buffer sizes/lengths.
> 
> Kaveri = TSMC28HP


You are trying to argue semantics, basically.Module derived vs architecturally derived terms are fuzzy too-modules are part of the architecture. I am sceptical because I expect that leaked die image to be excavator. Compared to what we expect SR to be, EX seems a great evolutionary step. If it was a steamroller, I may actually swap my AM3+ board for an FM2+ because that core was a beast.


----------



## Heavy MG

I'
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Wrong answer. FX line when it comes back as new technology will be on FM2+ or FM3 socket.


I'd sell my 1090T rig right now, if AMD were to announce a 6 core FX cpu for FM2+. Although a 6 core cpu on a 6+2 phase board made for a quad apu? I would kind of assume it wouldn't oc well,unless the tdp was less than 100 watts.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> I'
> I'd sell my 1090T rig right now, if AMD were to announce a 6 core FX cpu for FM2+. Although a 6 core cpu on a 6+2 phase board made for a quad apu? I would kind of assume it wouldn't oc well,unless the tdp was less than 100 watts.


Asus has some potent 6+2 phase 140W TDP rated AM3+ mobos, it is pretty easy to use similar components on FM2+ platform should the need arises. Gigabyte already has one similar model out (UP4) although I don't know if it is rated for more than 100W TDP since all current APU are below that at stock. Still,I'd expect it to be able to drive something similar to a FX-6300 all the way to 4.5Ghz. But we won't be seeing a Hexacore APU any time soon.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> I'
> I'd sell my 1090T rig right now, if AMD were to announce a 6 core FX cpu for FM2+. Although a 6 core cpu on a 6+2 phase board made for a quad apu? I would kind of assume it wouldn't oc well,unless the tdp was less than 100 watts.


On Carrizo Excavator cores the tdp for 6 core apu should be less than 100 watts. An FX Carrizo wold obviously merit higher end boards with 8+2 phase control and many other goodies like quad xfire pci 3.0 slots. Don't worry if and when it happens your mothetboard options should be a lot more patable than with Kaveri.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Asus has some potent 6+2 phase 140W TDP rated AM3+ mobos, it is pretty easy to use similar components on FM2+ platform should the need arises. Gigabyte already has one similar model out (UP4) although I don't know if it is rated for more than 100W TDP since all current APU are below that at stock. Still,I'd expect it to be able to drive something similar to a FX-6300 all the way to 4.5Ghz. But we won't be seeing a Hexacore APU any time soon.


6+2 phase control is hardly potent for serious overclocking. It remains to be seen whether Kaveri or Carrizo will be good overclockers. I will hold out for an ROG 8+2 phase conrol board if Carrizo is a good overclocker.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Kaveri and Carrizo will have the same IPC, but not the same IPS. Think of Agena and Deneb, and not of Zambezi and Vishera.


The main thing with Deneb was fixing Agena's lackluster performance. You're assuming that not only will Kaveri be like Agena, but that the only purpose of Excavator is to "fix" Kaveri. Excavator has always been about providing a huge performance boost over SR regardless. I'm pretty sure EX will have higher 'IPC' than SR will.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> 6+2 phase control is hardly potent for serious overclocking. It remains to be seen whether Kaveri or Carrizo will be good overclockers. I will hold out for an ROG 8+2 phase conrol board if Carrizo is a good overclocker.


It is good enough for rather high clocks on FX-6300 which draws less compared to octocores,that's my point. Once I get an FX-8320/8350 of my own I ll try it in my cheap m5a97 evo r2.0, it should be able to hold 4.6-4.7 without temps going out of hand,phase system and heatsinks seem to be related (albeit slightly different) to those found on m5a99FX pro r2.0, which is solid.


----------



## os2wiz

I wish you would heed others advice here and stop calling Excavator Steamroller. Let's be precise here especially since you seem to be entranced by engineering.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The main thing with Deneb was fixing Agena's lackluster performance. You're assuming that not only will Kaveri be like Agena, but that the only purpose of Excavator is to "fix" Kaveri. Excavator has always been about providing a huge performance boost over SR regardless. I'm pretty sure EX will have higher 'IPC' than SR will.


Solid on that bro!


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> It is good enough for rather high clocks on FX-6300 which draws less compared to octocores,that's my point. Once I get an FX-8320/8350 of my own I ll try it in my cheap m5a97 evo r2.0, it should be able to hold 4.6-4.7 without temps going out of hand,phase system and heatsinks seem to be related (albeit slightly different) to those found on m5a99FX pro r2.0, which is solid.[/quote
> 
> There is a possibility of 8 core Excavato-Carrizo for desktop. I would not limit myself to 6+2 power phase if an 8 core chip is available.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> It is good enough for rather high clocks on FX-6300 which draws less compared to octocores,that's my point. Once I get an FX-8320/8350 of my own I ll try it in my cheap m5a97 evo r2.0, it should be able to hold 4.6-4.7 without temps going out of hand,phase system and heatsinks seem to be related (albeit slightly different) to those found on m5a99FX pro r2.0, which is solid.
> 
> 
> 
> There is a possibility of 8 core Excavato-Carrizo for desktop. I would not limit myself to 6+2 power phase if an 8 core chip is available.
Click to expand...

You would if the TDP and over wattage was significantly lower..


----------



## Kuivamaa

Either way, there are no 8+2 FM2+ mobos atm., at least I haven't seen any.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The main thing with Deneb was fixing Agena's lackluster performance. You're assuming that not only will Kaveri be like Agena, but that the only purpose of Excavator is to "fix" Kaveri. Excavator has always been about providing a huge performance boost over SR regardless. I'm pretty sure EX will have higher 'IPC' than SR will.


Kaveri was supposed to be out last year,and Trinity was supposed to be out even sooner. Since AMD is so behind,Kaveri will probably feel like a stopgap APU without a huge performance increase, until we get Excavator.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Asus has some potent 6+2 phase 140W TDP rated AM3+ mobos, it is pretty easy to use similar components on FM2+ platform should the need arises. Gigabyte already has one similar model out (UP4) although I don't know if it is rated for more than 100W TDP since all current APU are below that at stock. Still,I'd expect it to be able to drive something similar to a FX-6300 all the way to 4.5Ghz. But we won't be seeing a Hexacore APU any time soon.


I'd say it also depends on the quality of the VRM's in the 6+2 power delivery,but probably limited to around 100-125 watts on the FM2+ boards for now. Although a 6 core could be totally possible since there's no GPU drawing extra wattage,but I woudn't expect 4.8-5ghz out of it.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> On Carrizo Excavator cores the tdp for 6 core apu should be less than 100 watts. An FX Carrizo wold obviously merit higher end boards with 8+2 phase control and many other goodies like quad xfire pci 3.0 slots. Don't worry if and when it happens your mothetboard options should be a lot more patable than with Kaveri.


But we aren't getting Excavator until late 2014? Maybe even 2015 if AMD has a setback again? We really could have had Excavator chips by now,if Kaveri hadn't been delayed,however quad xfire,DDR4,PCI-e 4,and next gen SATA coming in 2015 would be worth the wait.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> Kaveri was supposed to be out last year,and Trinity was supposed to be out even sooner. Since AMD is so behind,Kaveri will probably feel like a stopgap APU without a huge performance increase, until we get Excavator.
> I'd say it also depends on the quality of the VRM's in the 6+2 power delivery,but probably limited to around 100-125 watts on the FM2+ boards for now. Although a 6 core could be totally possible since there's no GPU drawing extra wattage,but I woudn't expect 4.8-5ghz out of it.
> But we aren't getting Excavator until late 2014? Maybe even 2015 if AMD has a setback again? We really could have had Excavator chips by now,if Kaveri hadn't been delayed,however quad xfire,DDR4,PCI-e 4,and next gen SATA coming in 2015 would be worth the wait.


I don't where your getting carrizo-excavator for 4th quarter of 2014. AMD has not indicated anything of the sort. It is expected 1st half 2015.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I don't where your getting carrizo-excavator for 4th quarter of 2014. AMD has not indicated anything of the sort. It is expected 1st half 2015.


Ok,my apologies,could I get your source please?
I dunno,Xbit could be using an old slide,their AMD roadmap slide indicates late 2014.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20131018224745_AMD_Excavator_Core_May_Dramatic_Performance_Increases.html


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Kaveri was supposed to be out last year,and Trinity was supposed to be out even sooner. Since AMD is so behind,Kaveri will probably feel like a stopgap APU without a huge performance increase, until we get Excavator.


And Agena was supposed to be out before it launched -- Barcelona in general was supposed to, and Bulldozer was supposed to launch in 2008~2009, but it was scrapped numerous times, etc. We could do this all day. Sometimes things happen and products get delayed, they do state on all their roadmaps that dates and even products are subject to change without notice at any time.

Kaveri was put on the path it's currently on ages ago, really. Even Richland was planned to succeed Trinity a long time ago. In regards to what Kaveri will feel like, I think it will feel like it's supposed to for anyone who has realistic expectations. Every time AMD gets ready to release a new processor, people expect it to have these ridiculous perf increases (which was one of the main reasons for Bulldozer's massive hype and why so many people across the web shunned it afterwards).
Quote:


> Ok,my apologies,could I get your source please?
> I dunno,Xbit could be using an old slide,their AMD roadmap slide indicates late 2014.


Just to put things into perspective, that slide is from 2011, before anything got pushed back.









Carrizo is currently a Q1 2015 part.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> Ok,my apologies,could I get your source please?
> I dunno,Xbit could be using an old slide,their AMD roadmap slide indicates late 2014.
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20131018224745_AMD_Excavator_Core_May_Dramatic_Performance_Increases.html


That slide is 3 years old. The new roadmap shows nothing but Kaveri for 2014.


----------



## MrJava

Well bulldozer was more like a research project than a commercial product. Should've been called bulldozer alpha or something. Piledriver was the fairly stable beta.

Steamroller is the gold release; a refined version of the original bulldozer. In terms of capabilities, in my opinion its somewhere between nehalem/westmere and sandy bridge.

Jim Keller is promising competitiveness at the high-end at some point in the future. It could be excavator or maybe beyond in 2016/2017.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Kaveri was put on the path it's currently on ages ago, really. Even Richland was planned to succeed Trinity a long time ago. In regards to what Kaveri will feel like, I think it will feel like it's supposed to for anyone who has realistic expectations. Every time AMD gets ready to release a new processor, people expect it to have these ridiculous perf increases (which was one of the main reasons for Bulldozer's massive hype and why so many people across the web shunned it afterwards).


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The main thing with Deneb was fixing Agena's lackluster performance.


Agena = 65-nm
Deneb = 45-nm
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Either way, there are no 8+2 FM2+ mobos atm., at least I haven't seen any.


ASRock A88X Extreme6+ is "8+2."
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Jim Keller is promising competitiveness at the high-end at some point in the future. It could be excavator or maybe beyond in 2016/2017.


Jim Keller can only cancel products, he is there for new architectures not old ones.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Bulldozer was supposed to launch in 2008~2009, but it was scrapped numerous times, etc.


Sandtiger = 8-core Bulldozer 45-nm MCM(2 x 4-core)
Falcon = 4-core Bulldozer 45-nm + GPU
^-- the only architectures that were cancelled in 2008.

32-nm Bulldozer that was dated to tape out in 2009, was mostly delayed do to the spinning off of GlobalFoundries. The 32-nm node was delayed one year and octal-core Bulldozer was taped out in 2010. The reason Llano exists was because there was going to be a Phenom II Octal-core instead of Bulldozer. Only the APU version of Bulldozer got cancelled. You can see the legacy of the 12h Octal-core in basically all AM3+/FM2+ BIOSes.


----------



## NaroonGTX

When Agena came out, people complained of the IPC, the low clockrates, and things like the TLB bug. Deneb fixed all of those issues, but in general both of these were delayed and missed the products they were supposed to originally compete with. It was more than just a die-shrink.
Quote:


> The reason Llano exists was because there was going to be a Phenom II Octal-core instead of Bulldozer. Only the APU version of Bulldozer got cancelled. You can see the legacy of the 12h Octal-core in basically all AM3+/FM2+ BIOSes.


You mean like this in the Biostar A88x FM2+ BIOS:
Quote:


> AMD Phenom(tm) Octal-Core AMD Unprogrammed Engineering Sample
> SCSKAVERI V0.0.0.1


Regardless I don't remember ever hearing about AMD planning a Phenom II octocore back in the day. That's new to me if it's true.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> When Agena came out, people complained of the IPC, the low clockrates, and things like the TLB bug. Deneb fixed all of those issues, but in general both of these were delayed and missed the products they were supposed to originally compete with. It was more than just a die-shrink.


There was no IPC issues with Agena, it did have a throttling issue because it was 125+ watts. Everything was fixed with the die shrink, do to the better tools.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Regardless I don't remember ever hearing about AMD planning a Phenom II octocore back in the day. That's new to me if it's true.


Phenom FX was two Agena dies and Phenom II FX was two Deneb dies, while the 32nm Phenom II FX was a true-octal core.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> And Agena was supposed to be out before it launched -- Barcelona in general was supposed to, and Bulldozer was supposed to launch in 2008~2009, but it was scrapped numerous times, etc. We could do this all day. Sometimes things happen and products get delayed, they do state on all their roadmaps that dates and even products are subject to change without notice at any time.
> 
> Kaveri was put on the path it's currently on ages ago, really. Even Richland was planned to succeed Trinity a long time ago. In regards to what Kaveri will feel like, I think it will feel like it's supposed to for anyone who has realistic expectations. Every time AMD gets ready to release a new processor, people expect it to have these ridiculous perf increases (which was one of the main reasons for Bulldozer's massive hype and why so many people across the web shunned it afterwards).
> Just to put things into perspective, that slide is from 2011, before anything got pushed back.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Carrizo is currently a Q1 2015 part.


It would've been awesome if Phenom II C3 chips would have been out sooner,and Bulldozer as well. AMD wouldn't be in as much of a mess.
Kaveri sounds nice,but half of it is GPU,with only 512 stream processors,bringing it to about HD 7750 performance. Indeed,it's quite a step up from less than HD 6670 performance,but could be even better. CPU performance can't go up very much,it's said to be about 15%. Intel is releasing new CPU's in 2015,which makes me hope AMD will be have some Mantle or HSA support by then.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Agena = 65-nm
> Deneb = 45-nm
> ASRock A88X Extreme6+ is "8+2."
> Jim Keller can only cancel products, he is there for new architectures not old ones.
> Sandtiger = 8-core Bulldozer 45-nm MCM(2 x 4-core)
> Falcon = 4-core Bulldozer 45-nm + GPU
> ^-- the only architectures that were cancelled in 2008.
> 
> 32-nm Bulldozer that was dated to tape out in 2009, was mostly delayed do to the spinning off of GlobalFoundries. The 32-nm node was delayed one year and octal-core Bulldozer was taped out in 2010. The reason Llano exists was because there was going to be a Phenom II Octal-core instead of Bulldozer. Only the APU version of Bulldozer got cancelled. You can see the legacy of the 12h Octal-core in basically all AM3+/FM2+ BIOSes.


The ASRock Extreme6+ looks like a solid board,although some ASRock boards have weak VRM's even though it may have more of them.
An APU version of Bulldozer would have been more exciting than cramming a GPU onto a Athlon II die. A Bulldozer APU probably didn't run cool enough for mass production,Bulldozer CPU's were a blast furnace on their own.
Phenom II octa-core? AMD would have sold so many of those things,though I had heard AMD couldn't fit more than a hexa-core onto 45nm and they were having trouble with 32nm at the time.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> There was no IPC issues with Agena, it did have a throttling issue because it was 125+ watts. Everything was fixed with the die shrink, do to the better tools.


I meant how everyone was disappointed with the performance it brought when it released. Agena itself was delayed and as such people viewed the performance it brought as disappointing compared to what Intel had at the time. Phenom II was supposed to compete with the previous Intel generation, and if it did, it would've looked a lot better than it did when it launched in late 2008.
Quote:


> Phenom FX was two Agena dies and Phenom II FX was two Deneb dies, while the 32nm Phenom II FX was a true-octal core.


I think I remember that now. Weren't these chips part of AMD's old QuadFX platform?


----------



## Kuivamaa

You mean the "quadfather"? These are older, athlon-era.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> It would've been awesome if Phenom II C3 chips would have been out sooner,and Bulldozer as well. AMD wouldn't be in as much of a mess.
> Kaveri sounds nice,but half of it is GPU,with only 512 stream processors,bringing it to about HD 7750 performance. Indeed,it's quite a step up from less than HD 6670 performance,but could be even better. CPU performance can't go up very much,it's said to be about 15%. Intel is releasing new CPU's in 2015,which makes me hope AMD will be have some Mantle or HSA support by then.
> The ASRock Extreme6+ looks like a solid board,although some ASRock boards have weak VRM's even though it may have more of them.
> An APU version of Bulldozer would have been more exciting than cramming a GPU onto a Athlon II die. A Bulldozer APU probably didn't run cool enough for mass production,Bulldozer CPU's were a blast furnace on their own.
> Phenom II octa-core? AMD would have sold so many of those things,though I had heard AMD couldn't fit more than a hexa-core onto 45nm and they were having trouble with 32nm at the time.


Sorry, but Phenom II was by no means a better arch, cramming 8-cores leaves you with a glorified Athlon 64 with old features...


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I meant how everyone was disappointed with the performance it brought when it released. Agena itself was delayed and as such people viewed the performance it brought as disappointing compared to what Intel had at the time.


Kaveri in my honest opinion is going to be almost exactly like Agena. With some alterations here and there but it should be almost like Agena.

It was delayed but the clocks are way below expectations:
3.7 GHz + 0.72 GHz is far from the expected ~4.4+ GHz and 0.9+ GHz.
---
Also, if you guys haven't noticed GlobalFoundries updated their website.
http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/14XM.aspx
http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/20LPM.aspx
http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28SLP.aspx
http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28HPP.aspx

I do think the reason why Kaveri is at TSMC not GlobalFoundries is for Gate Last, to improve scalability to 20nm and FinFETs. Which at GlobalFoundries 20nm/14nm has moved to Gate Last for the improved performance. The move has basically allowed 28nm HPP and 20nm LPM to be six months from each other.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *X-Alt*
> 
> Sorry, but Phenom II was by no means a better arch, cramming 8-cores leaves you with a glorified Athlon 64 with old features...


True,Phenom II lacks some instructions,improved turbo,and better IMC that FX has,but even with all that Phenom II still has very close IPC due to FX 8xxx being a quad core.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri in my honest opinion is going to be almost exactly like Agena. With some alterations here and there but it should be almost like Agena.
> 
> It was delayed but the clocks are way below expectations:
> 3.7 GHz + 0.72 GHz is far from the expected ~4.4+ GHz and 0.9+ GHz.
> ---
> Also, if you guys haven't noticed GlobalFoundries updated their website.
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/14XM.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/20LPM.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28SLP.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28HPP.aspx
> 
> I do think the reason why Kaveri is at TSMC not GlobalFoundries is for Gate Last, to improve scalability to 20nm and FinFETs. Which at GlobalFoundries 20nm/14nm has moved to Gate Last for the improved performance. The move has basically allowed 28nm HPP and 20nm LPM to be six months from each other.


Kaveri could be like a Deneb,without the high factory clocks. Deneb ran much cooler and got a better IMC too. Since the process isn't getting much smaller,after a 512 shader GPU gets its share,you have to keep the TDP down somehow? I really hope the Steamroller core has enough IPC improvements to make up the lack for clock speed. AMD can't really afford another Agena core since Kaveri is being hyped so much.


----------



## MrJava

Its fabbed by GF in Dresden. The ES's say "diffused in Germany".

Too early to conclude that final CPU clocks are 3.7GHz. Also turbo is unknown. With a 10% increase in IPC (on average) 3.7/4 turbo gives Richland performance at lower power draw. If you want more then overclock, this isn't some locked down i3.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> True,Phenom II lacks some instructions,improved turbo,and better IMC that FX has,but even with all that Phenom II still has very close IPC due to FX 8xxx being a quad core.


The FX-8xxx/9xxx series are both octal-cores.


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Its fabbed by GF in Dresden. The ES's say "diffused in Germany".
> 
> Too early to conclude that final CPU clocks are 3.7GHz. Also turbo is unknown. With a 10% increase in IPC (on average) 3.7/4 turbo gives Richland performance at lower power draw. If you want more then overclock, this isn't some locked down i3.


Lower pwer draw could mean better overclocks,if not the IPC makes up for it anyways,if it's atleast a 10% improvement.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The FX-8xxx/9xxx series are both octal-cores.


Yes,i realize they're all cores,but half of them end up sharing resources . Not trying to argue over if it's an 8 core not,AMD markets it that way,Windows sees it as 8 cores.


----------



## MrJava

Actually lower power draw is just an assumption on my part since the clocks are lower and its on a 28nm process ... but you never know.
Yes I'm thinking the IPC gain will be 15-20% on average.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> Lower pwer draw could mean better overclocks,if not the IPC makes up for it anyways,if it's atleast a 10% improvement.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> Yes,i realize they're all cores,but half of them end up sharing resources.


Actually, the resources are in the same area but are not shared.

15h 00h-2Fh core:
2 decoders -> 2 ALUs

14h/16h core:
2 decoders -> 2 ALUs

The idea of anything being shared in Bulldozer, other than die area is a marketing gimmick.


----------



## Papadope

What is after 28nm HPP for AMD? Everything smaller is being designed for low power, low voltage, mobile chips. Was their something else announced that is not on Global Foundries website?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> What is after 28nm HPP for AMD? Everything smaller is being designed for low power, low voltage, mobile chips. Was their something else announce that is not on their website?


If you follow the IBM/STM/GloFo for HP SOI roadmap you have;
20nm ETSOI for 2H 2014
14nm ET-FinFET SOI for 2H 2015/1H 2016


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> If you follow the IBM/STM/GloFo for HP SOI roadmap you have;
> 20nm ETSOI for 2H 2014
> 14nm ET-FinFET SOI for 2H 2015/1H 2016


Thanks for the info Seronx. That's moving pretty quick for Global Foundries. But they seem to be improving since the spin off. What Fab would they be produced at? Everything I can find states Fab 1 (Dresden) will continue producing 65, 45, and 32nm and Fab 8 will be producing 28nm and lower.

MrJava you said the Engineering Samples are from Fab 1? I thought Kaveri was being produced at Fab 8? Or is Fab 8 only 28nm and lower for mobile?
I gotta agree with the others Seronx, TSMC seems highly unlikely.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Thanks for the info Seronx. That's moving pretty quick for Global Foundries. But they seem to be improving since the spin off. What Fab would they be produced at? Everything I can find states Fab 1 (Dresden) will continue producing 65, 45, and 32nm and Fab 8 will be producing 28nm and lower.


Fab 1, Fab 8, and Fab 9, will be synced to do 28/20/14/10/7 bulk/FinFET/SOI.
Fab 1 -> Dresden
Fab 8 -> New York
Fab 9 -> Abu Dhabi
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> MrJava you said the Engineering Samples are from Fab 1? I thought Kaveri was being produced at Fab 8? Or is Fab 8 only 28nm and lower for mobile?


ZD356195I4468, is Fab 1.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I gotta agree with the others Seronx, TSMC seems highly unlikely.


I noticed.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> For months, GlobalFoundries has been in 32nm production in Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany. The company has begun ramping up 28nm production in Fab 1, a 300mm plant with a total capacity of 80,000 wspm. In addition, GlobalFoundries soon will move into 32nm/28nm production in Fab 8, its new 300mm fab in New York. Fab 8 is capable of making 60,000 wspm.


http://www.gictg.com/?p=5713

Looks like Fab 1 is at 28nm too. Their website is really not clear as to what is being produced where.


----------



## Seronx

From Crashtest: http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/showthread.php/415634-APU13-Kaveri-mit-856-GFLOPS-laut-AMD-ab-14-Januar-im-Laden-erhaeltlich?p=4839494&viewfull=1#post4839494
Quote:


> Processor 1 ID = 0
> Number of cores 4 (max 4)
> Number of threads 4 (max 4)
> Name AMD K15
> Codename Kaveri
> Specification AMD Eng Sample: ZD3xxxxxxxxxx_38/34/18/07_1313 (Engineering Sample)
> Package Socket FM2+ (906)
> CPUID F.0.1
> Extended CPUID 15.30
> Core Stepping KV-A1
> Technology 28 nm
> Core Speed 1859.9 MHz
> Multiplier x Bus Speed 18.5 x 100.5 MHz
> Stock frequency 3800 MHz
> Instructions sets MMX (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4A, x86-64, AMD-V, AES, AVX, XOP, FMA3, FMA4
> L1 Data cache 4 x 16 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> L1 Instruction cache 2 x 96 KBytes, 3-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> L2 cache 2 x 2048 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> FID/VID Control yes
> Min FID 10.0x
> # of P-States 8
> P-State FID 0x16 - VID 0x14 - IDD 18 (19.00x - 1.300 V)
> P-State FID 0x15 - VID 0x14 - IDD 24 (18.50x - 1.300 V)
> P-State FID 0x14 - VID 0x16 - IDD 20 (18.00x - 1.275 V)
> P-State FID 0x12 - VID 0x1E - IDD 17 (17.00x - 1.175 V)
> P-State FID 0xF - VID 0x2E - IDD 14 (15.50x - 0.975 V)
> P-State FID 0xC - VID 0x3E - IDD 10 (14.00x - 0.775 V)
> P-State FID 0x8 - VID 0x4C - IDD 8 (12.00x - 0.600 V)
> P-State FID 0x118 - VID 0x60 - IDD 6 (10.00x - 0.350 V)
> 
> PStateReg 0x800001AF-0x00002816
> PStateReg 0x800001ED-0x00002815
> PStateReg 0x800001C3-0x00002C14
> PStateReg 0x800001A5-0x00003C12
> PStateReg 0x80000187-0x00005C0F
> PStateReg 0x80000164-0x00007C0C
> PStateReg 0x8000014D-0x00009808
> PStateReg 0x8000013C-0x0000C058
> 
> Package Type 0x1
> Model 00
> String 1 0x0
> String 2 0x0
> Page 0x0
> Max non-turbo ratio 19.00x
> Max turbo ratio 19.00x
> TSC 3418.3 MHz
> APERF 3745.9 MHz
> MPERF 3382.0 MHz
> 
> ....
> Graphic APIs
> 
> API ATI I/O
> API ADL SDK
> 
> Display Adapters
> 
> Display adapter 0
> Name KV SPECTRE LITE DESKTOP 65W/100W (1313)
> Memory size 1024 MB
> PCI device bus 0 (0x0), device 1 (0x1), function 0 (0x0)
> Vendor ID 0x1002 (0x1002)
> Model ID 0x1313 (0x0123)
> Performance Level 0
> Core clock 351.2 MHz
> Memory clock 933.0 MHz
> Performance Level 1
> Core clock 720.0 MHz
> Memory clock 933.0 MHz
> 
> Win32_VideoController AdapterRAM = 0x40000000 (1073741824)
> Win32_VideoController DriverVersion = 13.250.0.0
> Win32_VideoController DriverDate = 09/10/2013


KV-A1? A10-7850K is A1? Not the latest KV-B0, we have been hearing about?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1404574/steamroller/1570#post_21238935
Notice, the clock speed is 2x (multiplier x bus speed)
Quote:


> Processor 1 ID = 0
> Number of cores 4 (max 4)
> Number of threads 4 (max 4)
> Name AMD A10-6800K
> Codename Richland
> Specification AMD A10-6800K APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics
> Package Socket FM2 (904)
> CPUID F.3.1
> Extended CPUID 15.13
> Core Stepping RL-A1
> Technology 32 nm
> TDP Limit 100 Watts
> Core Speed 4299.8 MHz
> Multiplier x Bus Speed 43.0 x 100.0 MHz
> Stock frequency 4100 MHz
> Instructions sets MMX (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4A, x86-64, AMD-V, AES, AVX, XOP, FMA3, FMA4
> L1 Data cache 4 x 16 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> L1 Instruction cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> L2 cache 2 x 2048 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
> FID/VID Control yes
> Min FID 10.0x
> # of P-States 8
> P-State FID 0x1C - VID 0x18 - IDD 19 (22.00x - 1.400 V)
> P-State FID 0x1B - VID 0x1E - IDD 21 (21.50x - 1.362 V)
> P-State FID 0x1A - VID 0x26 - IDD 19 (21.00x - 1.313 V)
> P-State FID 0x19 - VID 0x2C - IDD 16 (20.50x - 1.275 V)
> P-State FID 0x16 - VID 0x3A - IDD 13 (19.00x - 1.188 V)
> P-State FID 0x10 - VID 0x4C - IDD 9 (16.00x - 1.075 V)
> P-State FID 0xA - VID 0x5C - IDD 6 (13.00x - 0.975 V)
> P-State FID 0x4 - VID 0x6C - IDD 4 (10.00x - 0.875 V)
> 
> PStateReg 0x800001B9-0x0000301C
> PStateReg 0x800001D5-0x00003C1B
> PStateReg 0x800001C2-0x00004C1A
> PStateReg 0x8000019D-0x00005819
> PStateReg 0x80000181-0x00007416
> PStateReg 0x8000015C-0x00009810
> PStateReg 0x80000140-0x0000B80A
> PStateReg 0x8000012C-0x0040D804
> 
> Package Type 0x2
> Model 00
> String 1 0x0
> String 2 0x0
> Page 0x0
> Base TDP 0 Watts
> Boosted P-States 3
> Max non-turbo ratio 41.00x
> Max turbo ratio 44.00x
> TSC 4099.9 MHz
> APERF 4277.2 MHz
> MPERF 4075.2 MHz
> 
> Graphic APIs
> 
> API ATI I/O
> 
> Display Adapters
> 
> Display adapter 0
> Name Radeon HD 8670D
> Memory size 1024 MB
> PCI device bus 0 (0x0), device 1 (0x1), function 0 (0x0)
> Vendor ID 0x1002 (0x1462)
> Model ID 0x990C (0x7721)
> Performance Level 0


^Richland in comparison.


^--Kaveri Mobile


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> From Crashtest: http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/showthread.php/415634-APU13-Kaveri-mit-856-GFLOPS-laut-AMD-ab-14-Januar-im-Laden-erhaeltlich?p=4839494&viewfull=1#post4839494
> 
> 
> ^--Kaveri Mobile


20% better at 10% lower clocks, that's beautiful.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> 20% better at 10% lower clocks, that's beautiful.


It's for the mobile platform;
Kaveri Mobile 35W -> 1.8 GHz / 2.3 GHz
Richland Mobile 35W -> 2.5 GHz / 3.2 GHz


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri-Steamroller is done only at TSMC, there is no signs of AMD ever producing something on 28nm at GlobalFoundries. STMicroelectronics replaced AMD for #1 customer, which left AMD to only be able to produce at TSMC.


No TSMC for high performance parts. Kaveri uses GF's 28nm bulks process.



TSMC doesn't have fab in Germany.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> TSMC doesn't have fab in Germany.


TSMC has a solar fab in Germany.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> No TSMC for high performance parts.


GPUs are high performance parts and so is the console APUs.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> TSMC has a solar fab in Germany.


If I'm not mistake that fab doesn't do any processors.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> GPUs are high performance parts and so is the console APUs.


We're talking about CPU/APU here.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Are you 100% certain Kaveri is made at glofo?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Are you 100% certain Kaveri is made at glofo?


KV-A0/KV-A1 are made at GlobalFoundries and they are the current engineering/near early production samples. So, it is most likely Kaveri will continue to be made at GlobalFoundries.

The production model will be KV-B0 with similar clocks to KV-A1. I totally forgot about VR-Zone China with the chip leak, when I said the TSMC stuff.


----------



## Kuivamaa

They have a chance to meet the numbers they require through wafer supply agreement, in that case.


----------



## Oliverda

I think AMD should terminate that agreement in the near future. GF is still struggling to provide decent high performance process tech and I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There are some other options like IBM or Samsung and don't forget about Intel. Few days ago they made an announcement to sell some manufacturing capacity.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri in my honest opinion is going to be almost exactly like Agena. With some alterations here and there but it should be almost like Agena.
> 
> It was delayed but the clocks are way below expectations:
> 3.7 GHz + 0.72 GHz is far from the expected ~4.4+ GHz and 0.9+ GHz.
> ---
> Also, if you guys haven't noticed GlobalFoundries updated their website.
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/14XM.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/20LPM.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28SLP.aspx
> http://www.globalfoundries.com/technology/28HPP.aspx
> 
> I do think the reason why Kaveri is at TSMC not GlobalFoundries is for Gate Last, to improve scalability to 20nm and FinFETs. Which at GlobalFoundries 20nm/14nm has moved to Gate Last for the improved performance. The move has basically allowed 28nm HPP and 20nm LPM to be six months from each other.


Not really relevant but AMD's mobile "Beema"will be one 14nm.


Spoiler: Happy Days






Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> They have a chance to meet the numbers they require through wafer supply agreement, in that case.


Mobile will take care of it.

Intel btw only offers fab cap to non direct competitors and they demand big sums of money for them. (only high margin Altera stuff is made on it)


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Not really relevant but AMD's mobile "Beema"will be one 14nm.
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Happy Days
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mobile will take care of it.


Beema is gonna utilize the same process tech as Kabini does.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Intel btw only offers fab cap to non direct competitors and they demand big sums of money for them. (only high margin Altera stuff is made on it)


It was true until yesterday.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Beema is gonna utilize the same process tech as Kabini does.
> 
> 
> It was true until yesterday.


That is strange since it was stated that AMD would use 14nm for ultra mobile and I missed that slide from APU13.
Halving the power consumption while having the same perf on the same node is pretty impressive









I want 14nm mobile products if I could get that in a 12 cell laptop so that you can max it for 2 days in a row I would be so happy.
I mean a week of usage of one battery while working(Working =/= maxing) on it 10 hours a day that is incredible.


----------



## Kuivamaa

GloFo track record when it comes to delivering a new process is horrible. If Kaveri is indeed GloFo (I have no reason to question it), it must be the first 28nm *big* chip they fab-someone correct me If I am wrong/ TSMC has been doing that for 23 months already and let's not even discuss intel. I simply cannot see EX made on 20nm over there,within 14 months, that would be sorcery. It will probably have to be 28nm and get shrunk later.


----------



## NaroonGTX




----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


Looks decent too bad there is no bench with 1 core per module so 2 cores total to see if there is a penalty with the shared resources or not at all.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Is that with 1x4GB DDR3 RAM module or? Kinda meh they run on different OS versions.


----------



## NaroonGTX

It was 1x stick of 4GB DDR3 at 1333mhz most likely.

Not much to conclude from this bench, just posted it for the hell of it lol. We'll most likely not get any idea of Kaveri's actual performance until Dec./Jan.


----------



## Alatar

If those are normal geekbench 3 scores then both of them seem really low.


----------



## MrJava

The variance in Geekbench scores is pretty hilarious. Anyway I found a comparison between A8-5600K (3.6/3.9) and Kaveri (3.5/3.9) with similar memory configurations (likely single channel DDR3-1333). It seems this benchmark likes memory bandwidth.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/209001?baseline=223722

Largest gains in floating point surprisingly. Maybe we should get that AMDFX guy to make a summary table with %-age increases, he's really good at that.









Edit:
I believe they're both using single channel DDR3-1066. Geekbench seems to think that memory speed is 1MHz.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The variance in Geekbench scores is pretty hilarious. Anyway I found a comparison between A8-5600K (3.6/3.9) and Kaveri (3.5/3.9) with similar memory configurations (likely single channel DDR3-1333). It seems this benchmark likes memory bandwidth.
> 
> http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/209001?baseline=223722
> 
> Largest gains in floating point surprisingly. Maybe we should get that AMDFX guy to make a summary table with %-age increases, he's really good at that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit:
> I believe they're both using single channel DDR3-1066. Geekbench seems to think that memory speed is 1MHz.


can I just make a statement here... a bit off topic but

Why the heck are the benches using such low memory frequency.. I was pretty sure 1866 is about standard anymore


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> GloFo track record when it comes to delivering a new process is horrible. If Kaveri is indeed GloFo (I have no reason to question it), it must be the first 28nm *big* chip they fab-someone correct me If I am wrong/ TSMC has been doing that for 23 months already and let's not even discuss intel. I simply cannot see EX made on 20nm over there,within 14 months, that would be sorcery. It will probably have to be 28nm and get shrunk later.


20nm and 14nm is GloFo's alternative for blowing 22nm SOI and being forced to give it to IBM. I am more optimistic about it.

I do have a feeling Samsung is helping GloFo with R&D because Samsung wants to switch to SOI from bulk to be more competitive.


----------



## MrJava

22nm SOI is a propietary IBM process, not Common Platform. Isn't GF working with STMicro for 20nm and 14nm FDSOI?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> 20nm and 14nm is GloFo's alternative for blowing 22nm SOI and being forced to give it to IBM. I am more optimistic about it.
> 
> I do have a feeling Samsung is helping GloFo with R&D because Samsung wants to switch to SOI from bulk to be more competitive.


----------



## Seronx

http://cosmologyathome.org/show_host_detail.php?hostid=187215

^-- if we go based on this.

KV-A(x) has a third ALU but the same FPU perf.



Ending 67 = A0
Ending 68 = A1


----------



## MrJava

I'm 100 (yes 100) percent certain that Kaveri has 2 ALU and AGU per core, and 3 FPU pipes per module. In bulldozer execution units were underutilized and the solution was to "feed the core faster". I'm still unsure about the back-end (cache bandwidths and latency) but the numbers shown seem to support the idea that they are also faster by an appreciable amount.

Edit:
I'm sure the following statement will be made whenever a new member of the bulldozer family comes, but "this is what bulldozer should've been".


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> 22nm SOI is a propietary IBM process, not Common Platform. Isn't GF working with STMicro for 20nm and 14nm FDSOI?
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> 20nm and 14nm is GloFo's alternative for blowing 22nm SOI and being forced to give it to IBM. I am more optimistic about it.
> 
> I do have a feeling Samsung is helping GloFo with R&D because Samsung wants to switch to SOI from bulk to be more competitive.
Click to expand...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20100901220144_Globalfoundries_to_Start_Risk_Production_Using_20nm_22nm_in_Late_2012.html

That is what I am talking about. Note article date of 2010.
Quote:


> The 20nm technology offerings will come in two varieties: a high performance (HP) technology designed for wired applications such as servers and media processors, and a 20nm super low power (SLP) technology designed for power-sensitive mobile applications. *Globalfoundries will also have access to a 22nm super high performance (SHP) technology designed for devices requiring the utmost in performance, e.g. microprocessors of Advanced Micro Devices*.


(emphasis mine)

I've been wondering what happened to that and I just assumed IBM took it or it was sold to IBM or _something_. Either that or this article is completely wrong.


----------



## Seronx

22nm SHP was cancelled at GlobalFoundries, but its equivalent at IBM wasn't. AMD is either forced to use Bulk or wait for fully depleted techniques.


----------



## MrJava

Don't know - but I think its an IBM proprietary process geared towards big POWER CPUs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I've been wondering what happened to that and I just assumed IBM took it or it was sold to IBM or _something_. Either that or this article is completely wrong.


Edit:
So is AMD stuck with TSMC 20nm for graphics and GloFo 20nm LPM SLP for CPUs?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 22nm SHP was cancelled at GlobalFoundries, but its equivalent at IBM wasn't. AMD is either forced to use Bulk or wait for fully depleted techniques.


Hm, so the two were independent of each other and one was cancelled and the other wasn't? I've been asking all over the place and no one has really given me an answer other than "that's IBM".


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Hm, so the two were independent of each other and one was cancelled and the other wasn't? I've been asking all over the place and no one has really given me an answer other than "that's IBM".


Yep.

32nm SOI at IBM and GlobalFoundries weren't the same process as well. Globalfoundries, improved upon it and gave it better yields and better performance.

22nm SHP = IBM/GlobalFoundries. (PD-SOI)
20nm SHP = IBM/GlobalFoundries/STMicroelectronics/Samsung (FD-SOI with UTBB/ET-SOI)


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> AMD is either forced to use Bulk or wait for *fully depleted techniques*.


What do you mean?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> What do you mean?


FinFETs, or FD-SOI.

Going from cheapest to expensive to the end user(chip manufacturers like Intel, Nvidia, AMD, etc) after 28nm:

FD-SOI -> FinFETs -> Bulk.


----------



## MrJava

Interesting interview with Mark Papermaster
Quote:


> Let's say your new CPU core is one year late, could you move back to the older core and still benefit from a newer GPU?
> 
> MP: You could do that, I mean I don't intend to ever have one of my CPU cores coming a year late! But yes you could.
> 
> We've seen that kind of delay in the past&#8230;
> 
> MP: Today, we drive our key IP blocks to a very tight schedule so that's very unlikely. But you might have a smaller block, a specialized block that's pushing on some new capabilities, not like a CPU and a GPU core but smaller, it might be late and you just go with the previous one. Maybe it's some subset of a multimedia or audio block, something like that. You're right we'll have that flexibility.


Full interview: http://www.behardware.com/articles/871-1/interview-with-amd-s-cto-mark-papermaster-soc-x86.html

Haven't seen any evidence of AMD executing on roadmaps faster these days, but maybe we'll start seeing it in the near future.


----------



## D0ppelganger

Well, AMD's November conference is over and the new roadmap has been released with no sign of an FX Steamroller being released in 2014. "However, as far as is indicated, the 'performance' range of FX CPUs will stay with its 32nm Piledriver architecture until the end of 2014 and possibly beyond that." Have a look - http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/62549-amd-fx-processors-wont-get-steamroller-cores-2014/

At this point, I may just see if there are any great deals on an 8 core Piledriver on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. If I find one cheap, I may just pick one of those up instead of waiting till 2052 for AMD to get their act together with something other than an APU. If they stick to this roadmap, I don't see any way SR is going to be on AM3+. I just don't see them supporting that socket into 2015.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> Well, AMD's November conference is over and the new roadmap has been released with no sign of an FX Steamroller being released in 2014.


AMD's roadmap also didn't show the R(x) series, instead showed 7000 series for the whole year of 2013.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> If they stick to this roadmap, I don't see any way SR is going to be on AM3+.


AM3+ doesn't support HSA, the platform's R&D has been halted.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> Well, AMD's November conference is over and the new roadmap has been released with no sign of an FX Steamroller being released in 2014. "However, as far as is indicated, the 'performance' range of FX CPUs will stay with its 32nm Piledriver architecture until the end of 2014 and possibly beyond that." Have a look - http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/62549...er-cores-2014/
> 
> At this point, I may just see if there are any great deals on an 8 core Piledriver on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. If I find one cheap, I may just pick one of those up instead of waiting till 2052 for AMD to get their act together with something other than an APU. If they stick to this roadmap, I don't see any way SR is going to be on AM3+. I just don't see them supporting that socket into 2015.


Your link is broken and is missing a large part of the url.

However the roadmaps from AMD don't mean anything. Show me a roadmap from AMD that is more than 6 months older than the first new product release on the roadmap that is accurate.


----------



## D0ppelganger

^ Whoops. Here is the link and I edited my original post also http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/62549-amd-fx-processors-wont-get-steamroller-cores-2014/

Roadmap or not, It's pretty clear were not going to see SR on AM3+ in 2014 now or possibly at all. We would have heard something - anything.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> However the roadmaps from AMD don't mean anything. Show me a roadmap from AMD that is more than 6 months older than the first new product release on the roadmap that is accurate.


It's already been shown on a prior roadmap that Warsaw is for all of 2014, so that means no SR FX at all in 2014 either.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It's already been shown on a prior roadmap that Warsaw is for all of 2014, so that means no SR FX at all in 2014 either.


It doesn't mean that at all. We got the R(x) series when only the 7000 series were being focused on.


Warsaw(rebrand) 9mon -> SRFX 3mon -> ServerSR


----------



## NaroonGTX

AMD did troll with that, but it doesn't mean the CPU division will do the same.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It doesn't mean that at all. We got the R(x) series when only the 7000 series were being focused on.
> 
> 
> Warsaw(rebrand) 9mon -> SRFX 3mon -> ServerSR


Only because Titan dropped in a market where they actually compete on performance.

I don't think the E7's that Intel will be releasing q4 2013/2014 q1 will change that as to where the Titan did.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Guy over at OCuk has some Kaveri desktop chips: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25379562&postcount=197

Guess AMD is sending them to people now. We might see benches soon.


----------



## Durquavian

I'm looking for tablet/laptop hybrid with HSA aka kaveri. Was hoping by Feb march next year. Is that likely?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I'm looking for tablet/laptop hybrid with HSA aka kaveri. Was hoping by Feb march next year. Is that likely?


Judging by the way everything is going down most likely Feb March but yes


----------



## Serios

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> ^ Whoops. Here is the link and I edited my original post also http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/62549-amd-fx-processors-wont-get-steamroller-cores-2014/
> 
> Roadmap or not, It's pretty clear were not going to see SR on AM3+ in 2014 now or possibly at all. We would have heard something - anything.


I don't think it's clear at all.
Steamroller is already 1 year late. I think AMD has something more than Kaveri planned for 2014 only they don't have a specific period for the launch or simply they want to announce it in 2014.
They said the same thing about the GPUs that the HD 7000 will be their only offerings in 2013 and look what happened with that.


----------



## maarten12100

That probaly fake youtube video I posted in the other Kaveri thread showed kaveri doing 30/35 fps in BF4 @720p @ultra.

That is pretty impressive but I doubt it is true.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I posted a YouTube video of an AMD guy playing BF4 around a bunch of Indian guys, might be the same vid you're talking about. In which case it's real; he cycled through various settings and resolutions and eventually they turned it down to 720p and someone asked to turn it to Ultra, where they still got ~30+ fps. The AMD guy made it a point to mention how it'd be necessary to turn down the AA/post-process AA to get a good framerate, but other than that it was legit.
Quote:


> I don't think it's clear at all.
> Steamroller is already 1 year late. I think AMD has something more than Kaveri planned for 2014 only they don't have a specific period for the launch or simply they want to announce it in 2014.
> They said the same thing about the GPUs that the HD 7000 will be their only offerings in 2013 and look what happened with that.


Warsaw runs all throughout 2014 and as such there won't be an FX variant based on Steamroller. The 3 module version of Kaveri was canceled in 2012 (Steamroller-A) so there isn't really anything else Steamroller-based coming besides Kaveri and Berlin.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I posted a YouTube video of an AMD guy playing BF4 around a bunch of Indian guys, might be the same vid you're talking about. In which case it's real; he cycled through various settings and resolutions and eventually they turned it down to 720p and someone asked to turn it to Ultra, where they still got ~30+ fps. The AMD guy made it a point to mention how it'd be necessary to turn down the AA/post-process AA to get a good framerate, but other than that it was legit.
> Warsaw runs all throughout 2014 and as such there won't be an FX variant based on Steamroller. The 3 module version of Kaveri was canceled in 2012 (Steamroller-A) so there isn't really anything else Steamroller-based coming besides Kaveri and Berlin.


I guess we are talko g the same video than.
But I had my doubt that what they were showing was real or tht it was ine big Hoax rather it could've been anything.
I commented on that video and have yet to get a reply there was no proof no IHS shots no cpu-z no gpu-z shots nothing whatsoever


----------



## Oliverda

I made a performance simulation about 7850K's GPU performance in games.



Here you can find the full article: http://prohardver.hu/teszt/mit_tudhat_a_kaveri_gpu-ja/hd_7750-bol_kaveri_igp-t.html

Please note that it's in Hungarian.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> I made a performance simulation about 7850K's GPU performance in games.
> 
> 
> 
> Here you can find the full article: http://prohardver.hu/teszt/mit_tudhat_a_kaveri_gpu-ja/hd_7750-bol_kaveri_igp-t.html
> 
> Please note that it's in Hungarian.


Did you downclock a 7750 to see where the memory bottleneck is.
Then you have the needed minimal bandwidth you would need on the IGP to not be necked


----------



## D0ppelganger

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Warsaw runs all throughout 2014 and as such there won't be an FX variant based on Steamroller. The 3 module version of Kaveri was canceled in 2012 (Steamroller-A) so there isn't really anything else Steamroller-based coming besides Kaveri and Berlin.


Unfortunately, this.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Serios*
> 
> I don't think it's clear at all.
> Steamroller is already 1 year late. I think AMD has something more than Kaveri planned for 2014 only they don't have a specific period for the launch or simply they want to announce it in 2014.
> They said the same thing about the GPUs that the HD 7000 will be their only offerings in 2013 and look what happened with that.


DeNile isn't just a river in Egypt. The November conference was going to be AMD's direction going forward, and its spelled out pretty clear. Just take a look around the web, its not just one or two sources saying so, its several - including AMD. Steamroller on AM3+ hasn't been discussed since 2012 and they are moving on. Like Naroon above me said, Warsaw (based on PD) is being released in 2014 and SR powered Kaveri is on FM2+. By the time 2015 hits, it wouldn't even make sense for them to release a new technology on AM3+ anymore. Hey, I wish we were getting Steamroller on AM3+, but it just doesn't look like its going to happen.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> Hey, I wish we were getting Steamroller on AM3+, but it just doesn't look like its going to happen.


AM3+ isn't HSA compliant to any of the versions planned or available. Steamroller and its companion parts are built from the bottom up to support HSA.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller itself isn't reliant on HSA to function, so they could've in theory created a SR FX. They just didn't feel like making a SR octocore die for the servers for whatever reason(s), thus nothing to trickle downwards to AM3+.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> They just didn't feel like making a SR octocore die for the servers for whatever reason(s), thus nothing to trickle downwards to AM3+.




You mean 10-core right?


----------



## MrJava

Its likely that the big Opterons in the future will also be APUs. Could 4-5 Excavator Modules, 8MB L3 cache, 4-6 GCN CUs, quad-channel IMC, PCIe controllers and 4 HT Links could fit onto ~400mm^2 on 20nm? Maybe they won't include display interfaces to save a bit of die area.


----------



## Vagrant Storm

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Its likely that the big Opterons in the future will also be APUs. Could 4-5 Excavator Modules, 8MB L3 cache, 4-6 GCN CUs, quad-channel IMC, PCIe controllers and 4 HT Links could fit onto ~400mm^2 on 20nm? Maybe they won't include display interfaces to save a bit of die area.


I have a feeling they are planning to move to all APUs and ARM based CPUs They are just sliding them into the bottom and middle of the road maps, but I bet they will work their way up. Probably why they are sticking with pile driver for the 8-16 core CPUs for now. Plus I have been wondering if Steamroller has design issues when there is more than two modules. There aren't going to be any dual socket motherboards for Steamroller based CPUs and on many levels that works the same as stuffing multiple CPUs on one die. At least I haven't heard of any dual sockets coming out. Maybe excavator will change all that.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> 
> You mean 10-core right?


Holy 20 core steamroller I would buy that now if only they also had 8 way capabilities.
I would be so happy but AMD is behind a lot on their scheduel clearly.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Vagrant Storm*
> 
> I have a feeling they are planning to move to all APUs and ARM based CPUs They are just sliding them into the bottom and middle of the road maps, but I bet they will work their way up. Probably why they are sticking with pile driver for the 8-16 core CPUs for now. Plus I have been wondering if Steamroller has design issues when there is more than two modules. There aren't going to be any dual socket motherboards for Steamroller based CPUs and on many levels that works the same as stuffing multiple CPUs on one die. At least I haven't heard of any dual sockets coming out. Maybe excavator will change all that.


Well I was just thinking that an integrated GPU would really push GFLOPs/watt forward on the big Opterons. Keep in mind the GPU could be purely for compute i.e. rip out the display interfaces and fixed function hardware for graphics stuff like Texture units, ROPS etc. in order to save die area.

In the future intel will use a single socket for both its traditional Xeons and the new many-core CPUs like Knights Landing. A big opteron APU is a good solution to fight this coming sea change in the data centre. Seems AMD's a lot better positioned for this than NVIDIA though lol.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Keep in mind the GPU could be purely for compute i.e. rip out the display interfaces and fixed function hardware for graphics stuff like Texture units, ROPS etc. in order to save die area.


TMUs, ROPs, Etc don't take that much die and it would be a waste to remove those units.


----------



## MrJava

Source?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> TMUs, ROPs, Etc don't take that much die and it would be a waste to remove those units.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Source?


How about you look for yourself and stop making false assumptions? I'm not in the mood to make diagrams of every GPU die in existence just to satisfy your stupid source craze.

You can start with these:


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> How about you look for yourself and stop making false assumptions? I'm not in the mood to make diagrams of every GPU die in existence just to satisfy your stupid source craze.


Sorry but you make up crazy nonsense all the time, so I need a source.


----------



## CptDanko

So to my understanding the majority of you don't expect steamroller FXs? Im going to have to disagree. AMD is not stupid


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CptDanko*
> 
> So to my understanding the majority of you don't expect steamroller FXs? Im going to have to disagree. AMD is not stupid


AMD may have hexa-core or octo-core APU's when Carrizo arrives in 1st quarter 2015. Carrizo will be on 20 nm process and have the more advanced excavator cores.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CptDanko*
> 
> So to my understanding the majority of you don't expect steamroller FXs? Im going to have to disagree. AMD is not stupid


I expect Steamroller FX to be on 1000+ pin LGA platform. To support HSA at the multiple discrete card level.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Carrizo will be on 20 nm process and have the more advanced excavator cores.


I would actually wait for a confirmation for that. Carrizo is more likely to be 28nm than 20nm, while also being a Richland like refresh.

The 28nm CPU and APU goes through Q12014 to Q42015.


----------



## NaroonGTX

More nonsense^. Carrizo is not a refresh. It's the Excavator-based APU scheduled for Q1 2015, and there's nothing to suggest otherwise.
Quote:


> So to my understanding the majority of you don't expect steamroller FXs? Im going to have to disagree. AMD is not stupid


Okay well I'll be here waiting for AMD to "surprise" us with a SR FX chip despite there being no evidence whatsoever to support such a chip existing.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> More nonsense^. Carrizo is not a refresh. It's the Excavator-based APU scheduled for Q1 2015, and there's nothing to suggest otherwise.


I'm not saying Carrizo won't be based on bdver4. I'm saying it probably won't be 20nm. There is no evidence for Carrizo actually being on 20nm.

Just a possibility;

Zambezi = OR-B2 = bdver1
Vishera = OR-C0 = bdver2
Trinity/Richland = TN-A1/RL-A1 = bdver2
*Kaveri = KV-A(x) = bdver3
Carrizo = KV-B(x) = bdver4*

You also have the Basilisk APU, that should come out with Carrizo or after Carrizo.

Kaveri / Berlin -> Carrizo / Unknown -> Basilisk / Wani


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CptDanko*
> 
> So to my understanding the majority of you don't expect steamroller FXs? Im going to have to disagree. AMD is not stupid


I think they want programs using the integrated graphics for computing. That could make people actually want an APU over something out of the FX line.

They are talking a lot about HSA. HSA won't work right for graphics cards because it's sitting in the PCI-E slot, isn't directly connected to the memory controller like the integrated graphics. The graphics card is also busy with preparing the actual graphics when a game runs.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> They are talking a lot about HSA. HSA won't work right for graphics cards because it's sitting in the PCI-E slot, isn't directly connected to the memory controller like the integrated graphics. The graphics card is also busy with preparing the actual graphics when a game runs.




Terramar/Sepang/Komodo/Dublin/Macau/etc was suppose to bring it to the discrete platform


----------



## Serios

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> Unfortunately, this.
> DeNile isn't just a river in Egypt. The November conference was going to be AMD's direction going forward, and its spelled out pretty clear. Just take a look around the web, its not just one or two sources saying so, its several - including AMD. Steamroller on AM3+ hasn't been discussed since 2012 and they are moving on. Like Naroon above me said, Warsaw (based on PD) is being released in 2014 and SR powered Kaveri is on FM2+. By the time 2015 hits, it wouldn't even make sense for them to release a new technology on AM3+ anymore. Hey, I wish we were getting Steamroller on AM3+, but it just doesn't look like its going to happen.


I'm not denying anything man.
According to AMD's the 7000 series should have the only cards for 2013 and according to Nvidia's road map the GTX 760 should have been their last 700 card for 2013. This things did not happen.
Hoping for another chip besides Kaveri is 2014 is not denial.


----------



## yawa

Just throwing two arbitrary single threaded Cinebench 11.5 scores out there as my official guesstimate of performance.

At 3.7 GHz - 1.47
At 4.7 GHz - 1.69


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I expect Steamroller FX to be on 1000+ pin LGA platform. To support HSA at the multiple discrete card level.
> I would actually wait for a confirmation for that. Carrizo is more likely to be 28nm than 20nm, while also being a Richland like refresh.
> 
> The 28nm CPU and APU goes through Q12014 to Q42015.


I seriously doubt that.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> I think they want programs using the integrated graphics for computing. That could make people actually want an APU over something out of the FX line.
> 
> They are talking a lot about HSA. HSA won't work right for graphics cards because it's sitting in the PCI-E slot, isn't directly connected to the memory controller like the integrated graphics. The graphics card is also busy with preparing the actual graphics when a game runs.


That is bogus. Everything put out about the HSA architecture at APU '13 flies in the face of what you are saying. I think you better check your sources before you dish out manure and expect us to eat it.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is bogus. Everything put out about the HSA architecture at APU '13 flies in the face of what you are saying. I think you better check your sources before you dish out manure and expect us to eat it.


You are mean. I only ever looked at short documents and really only ever seen them talk about SoCs, how great HSA will be about using the GPU and other DSPs that are on the same chip as the CPU cores.

I found this here on the APU13 site, and it's again only SoC stuff regarding how great HSA will be: http://amd-dev.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/apu2/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_HSA_Final2.pdf


----------



## yawa

Predictions:

- HSA will make a bigger difference than anyone is expecting, but it will do so in limited bench's and selected real world tasks. -

- Single core, traditional IPC will be about what I predicted in my last post, with heavily over clocked performance beating a 3770k. -

- Multi-core performance will also be marginally better than predicted. -

I did a lot of thinking ( and math!) Last night about what you guys have been fighting about here the last few days. Personally I think the writing is on the wall for why an FX Steamroller hasn't been so much as mentioned in recent roadmaps, and this whole debate is a bit over thought. The Mobo maker's would not be gracing us with these high end FM2+ boards unless they knew something positive we didn't about performance on these chips being far better than anticipated. You must remember AMD got the very conservative Microsoft to fork over hundred's of millions as well as the responsibility of the Xbox brand to AMD after seeing just an early, theoretical, HSA powered demo of their APU's in action. That also speaks volumes of confidence in not just the possible peak performance, but how much confidence Microsoft (and Sony) have in developers learning, implementing, and using proper multi-threading and AMD developer tools on a wide scale going forward.

So my point is the reason they are only releasing one because it's strong enough as a fully featured processor that it's all they need to test interest. If it's popular they will explore other avenues, perhaps even with more modules and less SP's, but for now I get the sense that like with Hawaii, AMD feel's they knocked this one out of the park and as such (also like Hawaii) people aren't going to believe what they've done with this thing.

Anyway if I'm even ten percent within being right I'm going FM2+ in January. I personally feel I've spent ages with this FX8350 and I'm more than ready for a chip that I do not have to pump tons of voltage into to get a decent memory and Northbridge clock.

Either way, happy clocking

P.S. hopefully as a nice early Xmas present the guy who received some revision 1.0 Kaveri's on Overclockers leaks a few things. Even without proper HSA chipset driver's I'd love to get a sense of single threaded capability and over clocking ceiling before December.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Just throwing two arbitrary single threaded Cinebench 11.5 scores out there as my official guesstimate of performance.
> 
> At 3.7 GHz - 1.47
> At 4.7 GHz - 1.69


That would be incredible and even better if the multi scaled nicely with limited bottleneck due to shared resources.
would put it at around 6 points in Cinebench at stock (which would be incredible as Cinebench 11.5 is pretty much an Intel benchmark)

Prepare to be dissapointed the increase will be good just not that good.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Just throwing two arbitrary single threaded Cinebench 11.5 scores out there as my official guesstimate of performance.
> 
> At 3.7 GHz - 1.47
> At 4.7 GHz - 1.69


Probably quite lower than that since Kaveri is still an AMD processor, therefore stuck at running CB 11.5 under SSE2.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Its likely that the big Opterons in the future will also be APUs. Could 4-5 Excavator Modules, 8MB L3 cache, 4-6 GCN CUs, quad-channel IMC, PCIe controllers and 4 HT Links could fit onto ~400mm^2 on 20nm? Maybe they won't include display interfaces to save a bit of die area.


Actually that would make great sense. I had a discussion with on of the server admits that work with me in a Web hosting company. Amd is good at locking cores down and brute forcing threads. However Intel is better and smaller thread handling and switching threads.. and app at least in a Web server would make great sense since a lot of little threads could be worked in parralel


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Prepare to be dissapointed the increase will be good just not that good.


Yep. No point in throwing out stuff like this, only to be disappointed in the future when real results appear. We're not that far away from Kaveri, just wait for real benches.


----------



## Oliverda

They are not even going to release a SR FX in 2015.









I think Carizzo can be a 20 nm part. Don't forget that the Excavator module is gonna get some duplicated parts inside.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Haha, well there it goes, FX is totally dead forever (at least in terms of future parts.) Looks like APU-only was true, not that I care or anything. I guess Basilisk will be Excavator-based APU with DDR4 support, then?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Don't forget that the Excavator module is gonna get some duplicated parts inside.


It's Steamroller that has the duplicated parts, the steamroller and excavator module are one in the same. Other than Excavator having more BTB/DTLB/ITLB/ISEs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I guess Basilisk will be Excavator-based APU with DDR4 support, then?


Basilisk has a peculiar code name; Wani.

Orochi is a Snake/Dragon
Komodo is a Lizard
Wani is a Snake/Dragon and Basilisk is largely based on the Cobra.

Komodo "Project Judo"
Basilisk "Project Wani"
are in shared development with the same people working on it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Nothing points to SR-B having the duplicated parts. The recently-leaked CPU-Z screens didn't reflect that at all. It's EX that has the doubled-up everything.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It's Steamroller that has the duplicated parts, the steamroller and excavator module are one in the same. Other than Excavator having more BTB/DTLB/ITLB/ISEs.


AFAIK Excavator is gonna get AVX2 support which needs a redesigned or at least upgraded FPU.

http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/news/hardware/cpu/28242-amds-excavator-with-intels-avx2.html


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It's EX that has the doubled-up everything.


The module is Steamroller, though to much of peoples regrets.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> AFAIK Excavator is gonna get AVX2 support which needs a redesigned or at least extended FPU.


The units are still in 64-bit portions of 128-bit slices. Instead of having 4 64-bit portions of 2 128-bit slices, Steamroller has 8 64-bit portions of 4 128-bit portions.


----------



## NaroonGTX

We'll see when info on Kaveri 2.0 is unleashed at CES 2014. I've got my bets. Prepare to eat your hat Seronx.









Edit: So Basilisk is the platform name and Wani is the codename of the part? Interesting indeed.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> We'll see when info on Kaveri 2.0 is unleashed at CES 2014. I've got my bets. Prepare to eat your hat Seronx.


Kaveri is the desktop SKUs and Kaveri 2.0 is the mobile SKUs.

Kaveri - CES2014
Kaveri 2.0 - Computex
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Edit: So Basilisk is the platform name and Wani is the codename of the part? Interesting indeed.


Basilisk is what we will see, Wani is the codename for the project.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I meant Kaveri 2.0 as in the one using SR-B (aka Steamroller 2.0). Forgot they're using Kaveri 2.0 to refer to the mobile platform.


----------



## Oliverda

I can't see too much differences between Kaveri and so called Kaveri 2.0.

1.0:



2.0:


----------



## NaroonGTX

I'm sure it's just more marketing nonsense. The silicon will be the same since it can scale to so many different form factors so well.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> I can't see too much differences between Kaveri and so called Kaveri 2.0.


They are being optimized for different markets, but other than the optimization they are the same.
Kaveri = Optimized for speed/clock.
Kaveri 2.0 = Optimized for thermals/power.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I meant Kaveri 2.0 as in the one using SR-B (aka Steamroller 2.0). Forgot they're using Kaveri 2.0 to refer to the mobile platform.


SteamrollerA -> January 2013, cancelled because it wasn't competitive to Haswell. (Richland replaced it)
SteamrollerB -> January 2014, revamped version of SteamrollerA that is competitive with Haswell.

--
Edit Off-topic: For CES, I am hoping for a 4x4 MU-MIMO+Beamforming N/AC router with Tri or Quad Cortex A7/A12 cores.


----------



## MrJava

Nothing on that roadmap to suggest that it couldn't have just been made up. However if its true, Carrizo with DDR3 is slightly odd. Surely in 2015, DDR4-2133 will be available at lower prices versus DDR3-2133. DDR4-2400 might even be available within the price bracket that "mainstream" users look at.

I hope AMD isn't gimping its APUs to satisfy the welfare crowd that don't want to upgrade motherboards.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> 
> 
> They are not even going to release a SR FX in 2015.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think Carizzo can be a 20 nm part. Don't forget that the Excavator module is gonna get some duplicated parts inside.


----------



## MrJava

AVX2 allows integer AVX instructions to use the 256-bit AVX registers. So it doesn't automatically imply that Excavator has more FPU pipes because it supports the new instructions.
Its theoretically possible that you could provide AVX2 support in Excavator with only 2 128-bit pipes "fusing" together as Steamroller does now for AVX floating point instructions. Steamroller already supports FMA3 which was introduced as part of AVX2 for Haswell.

That being said, the timing is right with Excavator's release to provide 4 128-bit pipes and possibly more integer pipes in the integer cores.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> AFAIK Excavator is gonna get AVX2 support which needs a redesigned or at least upgraded FPU.
> 
> http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/news/hardware/cpu/28242-amds-excavator-with-intels-avx2.html


----------



## NaroonGTX

Either Carrizo has a dual-IMC with DDR3/DDR4 support, or DDR4 will come with Basilisk. Anyway, I don't see a problem with Carrizo being a drop-in upgrade for people on FM2+ already. Not everyone will be using the chips with the iGPU only, though the increased bandwidth from DDR4 would be great for HSA workloads.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Haha, well there it goes, FX is totally dead forever (at least in terms of future parts.) Looks like APU-only was true, not that I care or anything. I guess Basilisk will be Excavator-based APU with DDR4 support, then?


The FX brand is likely to move to the APU space once Excavator cores arrive. I do forsee 6 and 8 core FX apu's in 2015 despite your negativity. It would be a very profitable line for AMD and give major headaches for the I7 series of Intel.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think it's possible for FX to hit FM2+ at some point. It seems more likely for that to happen since AM3+ doesn't meet the requirements for true HSA workloads, and it's a really outdated chipset anyway. I remember AMD saying in the past when mentioning the future unified socket that it would have both APU's and "processors" on the same socket, but who knows if they've changed plans or anything on that. It would make sense to allow even people with "CPU-only" parts to still indulge in HSA apps since their dGPU's also support/will support HSA as well. What better way to do that than migrate everyone onto the same platform (FM2+/FM3.)


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Either Carrizo has a *dual-IMC with DDR3/DDR4 support*, or DDR4 will come with Basilisk. Anyway, I don't see a problem with Carrizo being a drop-in upgrade for people on FM2+ already. Not everyone will be using the chips with the iGPU only, though the increased bandwidth from DDR4 would be great for HSA workloads.


So wouldn't this roadmap say DDR3/DDR4? I still don't think anyone should accept that its a genuine roadmap btw. Since intel's mainstream supports DDR4 by 2015, its likely that even an i3 would beat the highest end Carizzo in perf and perf/watt for CPU, GPU and GPGPU workloads.

Basilisk appears to be a made-up codename from the mind of Seronx.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I've seen Basilisk mentioned back in the day before, and apparently an AMD employee was listed as working on "Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk APU's" before, so I don't think it was made up.

AMD's roadmaps usually lack certain details and what have you, so who knows for sure. I guess we'll find out more about AMD's plans for DDR4 whenever they decide to stop trolling and being ultra-secretive (or more "internal documents" get "leaked".)


----------



## Seronx

Side by Side:

Steamroller L1D Cache(top); Piledriver L1D Cache(bottom)

Overlay:

Steamroller L1D SRAMs(green); Piledriver L1D SRAMs(Pink)

Piledriver and Steamroller both have 16KB caches. The horrendous quality and different dimensions of the Piledriver cache makes it look smaller.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I've noticed that Steamroller's L1-i caches are now 96kb and 3-way associativity. What does this mean (besides biggur = bettar)? My knowledge of CPU architectures isn't deep enough yet to discern much from it.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I've noticed that Steamroller's L1-i caches are now 96kb and 3-way associativity. What does this mean (besides biggur = bettar)? My knowledge of CPU architectures isn't deep enough yet to discern much from it.


Bigger is better in the general sense.

http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse378/02sp/sections/section9-2.html
(Doesn't show prefetching helps cold misses^)

Correct me if I am wrong people of the internet:
Steamroller has a faster prefetch engine than Piledriver so cold misses are less likely to happen.
Steamroller has a bigger L1i cache than Piledriver so capacity misses are less likely to happen.
Steamroller has more associativity than Piledriver so conflict misses are less likely to happen.


The improvement should lead up to a 30% reduction of misses.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*


At first look I thought fake because of the lack of DDR4 on Carrizo, but it could be real.

Quote:


> We expect to see DDR4 in desktops and notebooks maybe a year after the server," explained a representative from Kingston on the show floor. If that's true we should see DDR4 filtering down into our desktop machines sometime in 2015 - memory companies are set to start shipping server-grade memory next year


Quote:


> Samsung is predicting that DDR4 will most likely not turn up in our own machines until after 2015. That's a long way away and we could well have a very different computing ecosystem by then


Source: DDR4 is real - but don't hold your breath waiting for it

There's multiple things I find worrisome on that roadmap but it kind of makes sense. AMD has definitely been having trouble following their own roadmaps lately and even Kaveri doesn't reach their 1 teraflop estimate. I think they are just learning to say what they can guarantee and omit what they are unsure they can deliver.

For example, A max TDP of 65w makes a 3 module APU extremely unlikely. However, that doesn't mean it will never exist. I think they are just saying it will definitely launch on FM2+, It will definitely support DDR3, and a 2 module APU will have a 65w TDP. Anything else is subject to change and was just omitted.

Would they think this way, or am I just being too optimistic?
Happy Thanksgiving by the way everyone!


----------



## MrJava

Agreed. Back to the uarch discussion, when will they fix the terrible MUL unit? For example a IMUL reg32,reg32 takes 4 cycles with 2 cycle rep-rate. On K10 this was 3 cycles with 1 cycle rep-rate. Granted, if you're doing a stream of IMULs, it should be using SSE. Maybe future Jim Keller designs will deliver high performance with no-caveats.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Bigger is better in the general sense.
> 
> http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse378/02sp/sections/section9-2.html
> (Doesn't show prefetching helps cold misses^)
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong people of the internet:
> Steamroller has a faster prefetch engine than Piledriver so cold misses are less likely to happen.
> Steamroller has a bigger L1i cache than Piledriver so capacity misses are less likely to happen.
> Steamroller has more associativity than Piledriver so conflict misses are less likely to happen.
> 
> 
> The improvement should lead up to a 30% reduction of misses.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving by the way everyone!


Happy *American* Thanksgiving to you as well!









That roadmap seems to be composed of various rumours that have been reported such as that max TDP would be 65W.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> For example, A max TDP of 65w makes a 3 module APU extremely unlikely. However, that doesn't mean it will never exist. I think they are just saying it will definitely launch on FM2+, It will definitely support DDR3, and a 2 module APU will have a 65w TDP. Anything else is subject to change and was just omitted.
> 
> Would they think this way, or am I just being too optimistic?
> Happy Thanksgiving by the way everyone!


I pretty much agree. After I saw the 45 & 65W TDP targets for Carrizo a couple months back, I kinda ruled out parts with more than 2 modules, but it's always possible...

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.


----------



## Seronx

@*everyone*

Happy Thanksgiving to those who read the [email protected] THREAD!

@*MrJava*

I would be surprised if Steamroller's IMUL reg32,reg32 takes 2 cycles with a 1 cycle rep-rate and reg64,reg64 takes 4 cycles with a 2 cycle rep-rate.
(no the would isn't a typo)

Edit: Also hoping the IDIV unit will also be faster.

@*ExcavatorTalk*

Other than bdver4, and unknown queue improvements that will be available.

Excavator's development is making use of aggressive power savings, supposedly. While Steamroller was just trying to get better performance.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I would be surprised if Steamroller's IMUL reg32,reg32 takes 2 cycles with a 1 cycle rep-rate and reg64,reg64 takes 4 cycles with a 2 cycle rep-rate.
> (no the would isn't a typo)


Me too. I can accept this compromise to reduce complexity and save die area within the INT core. I think its generally unrealistic to expect AMD to fix every single one of these IPC-reducing edge-cases which are not really edge-cases.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Me too. I can accept this compromise to reduce complexity and save die area within the INT core. I think its generally unrealistic to expect AMD to fix every single one of these IPC-reducing edge-cases which are not really edge-cases.


One of the hidden improvements not talked about for Steamroller is the Atomic instructions. XADD/XCHG/CMPXCHG/etc.

Are those a big deal?

Edit: Something similar to AMD's ASF should exist in Steamroller or Excavator as well.


----------



## yuri69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> So wouldn't this roadmap say DDR3/DDR4? I still don't think anyone should accept that its a genuine roadmap btw. Since intel's mainstream supports DDR4 by 2015, its likely that even an i3 would beat the highest end Carizzo in perf and perf/watt for CPU, GPU and GPGPU workloads.
> 
> Basilisk appears to be a made-up codename from the mind of Seronx.


The roadmap is genuine. This version is just an update to a summer one. The summer version got similar info with some specs marked as uncertain. The biggest difference is AMD canceling/delaying the 2015 Nolan/Amur lowend APUs.

This is a kinda big deal. No new core, no new node, etc. Just sticking to Beema. Seems weird. Let's hope they will introduce the new gen of APUs for mobile market instead.

As for Basilisk, that one is not made-up too. It's appeared on linkedin profiles long time ago and btw does anybody want this hoodie? http://www.allthingscustomized.com/product/amd-basilisk-17381-751/

@CMPXCHG Is important. It's directly used a lot in HPC AFAIK.


----------



## Alatar

Anyone find the source for that slide with the updated (apparently) roadmap?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The FX brand is likely to move to the APU space once Excavator cores arrive. I do forsee 6 and 8 core FX apu's in 2015 despite your negativity. It would be a very profitable line for AMD and give major headaches for the I7 series of Intel.


There have been 4-core desktop i7s for 5 years now. They're most likely going to receive a core count bump at some point in the future. 2015 is already borderline skylake territory. Tock for the 14nm stuff. Intel is already going 8-core for extreme i7 with 22nm tock. 6-core mainstream i7 isn't far fetched for 14nm tock.

The problem with wishing for those 6-8 core APUs is that while they could potentially be great its been 3 years already since AMD came out with the first 8-core parts. Core count is supposed to increase over time (just like it has with intel stuff, they just aren't even giving us the good stuff *cough* 12-core IBE and 14-core Haswell-E *cough*). By the time the potential 8-core APUs might come out 8 isn't going to be that big of a number anymore.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Anyone find the source for that slide with the updated (apparently) roadmap?
> There have been 4-core desktop i7s for 5 years now. They're most likely going to receive a core count bump at some point in the future. 2015 is already borderline skylake territory. Tock for the 14nm stuff. Intel is already going 8-core for extreme i7 with 22nm tock. 6-core mainstream i7 isn't far fetched for 14nm tock.
> 
> The problem with wishing for those 6-8 core APUs is that while they could potentially be great its been 3 years already since AMD came out with the first 8-core parts. Core count is supposed to increase over time (just like it has with intel stuff, they just aren't even giving us the good stuff *cough* 12-core IBE and 14-core Haswell-E *cough*). By the time the potential 8-core APUs might come out 8 isn't going to be that big of a number anymore.


Pretty much this 8 cores was never that big a number.
Had 8 cores since 2008 best platform I ever had.
Power usage of dual socket however isn't that good


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Anyone find the source for that slide with the updated (apparently) roadmap?
> There have been 4-core desktop i7s for 5 years now. They're most likely going to receive a core count bump at some point in the future. 2015 is already borderline skylake territory. Tock for the 14nm stuff. Intel is already going 8-core for extreme i7 with 22nm tock. 6-core mainstream i7 isn't far fetched for 14nm tock.
> 
> The problem with wishing for those 6-8 core APUs is that while they could potentially be great its been 3 years already since AMD came out with the first 8-core parts. Core count is supposed to increase over time (just like it has with intel stuff, they just aren't even giving us the good stuff *cough* 12-core IBE and 14-core Haswell-E *cough*). By the time the potential 8-core APUs might come out 8 isn't going to be that big of a number anymore.


Those 12 and 14 core chips are not for the desktop, they are server chips. AMD will have new large core chips for the server market when Excavator cores are available.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Those 12 and 14 core chips are not for the desktop, they are server chips. AMD will have new large core chips for the server market when Excavator cores are available.


Well he stated that intel isn't bringing those chips to the enthusiast.
Not that i really care for it.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yuri69*
> 
> The roadmap is genuine. This version is just an update to a summer one. The summer version got similar info with some specs marked as uncertain. The biggest difference is AMD canceling/delaying the 2015 Nolan/Amur lowend APUs.
> 
> This is a kinda big deal. No new core, no new node, etc. Just sticking to Beema. Seems weird. Let's hope they will introduce the new gen of APUs for mobile market instead.
> 
> As for Basilisk, that one is not made-up too. It's appeared on linkedin profiles long time ago and btw does anybody want this hoodie? http://www.allthingscustomized.com/product/amd-basilisk-17381-751/
> 
> @CMPXCHG Is important. It's directly used a lot in HPC AFAIK.


Are you yuri from semiaccurate?

CMPXCHG is x86 compare-and-swap or compare-and-set AFAIK. In which case used for spinlocks and lock-free data structures. Why would AMD implement ASF after all this time. Better to just implement TSX.

I've heard about those lower-end APUs being delayed. How are you so sure the rest of the roadmap is genuine (i.e. DDR3 for Carizzo)? Inside sources?

Edit:
I can excuse Carizzo on FM2+ with DDR3 if Basilisk is a higher-end chip on a higher-end platform. Would be interesting to see an APU with higher core count, L3 and HyperTransport for interconnect with other APUs.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I don't understand the illogical presentation he made. He is saying Intel will be way ahead with those new chips in 2015and I was explicitly talking about 6 to 8 core chips for the desktop not servers. Apples vs oranges. Is there a disconnect in logic in the Finnish northland?


Hush good music comes from there...

Now with the cores.. Intel will still have the top end with added cores which with their better ipc will be hard for amd to keep up..

The hope is that the apps will perform with either the same or better but most likely will be below.. unless HSA can make the difference.

As far as the core count... it will only matter if it is needed..


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Hush good music comes from there...
> 
> Now with the cores.. Intel will still have the top end with added cores which with their better ipc will be hard for amd to keep up..
> 
> The hope is that the apps will perform with either the same or better but most likely will be below.. unless HSA can make the difference.
> 
> As far as the core count... it will only matter if it is needed..


Yes the IPC is still somwhat tilted in their favor, but certainly smaller than before, and with Excavator smaller still with the improved cache and redesigned IMC. An 8 core FX APU
will certainly give them a run fr the money.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Why would AMD implement ASF after all this time. Better to just implement TSX.


ASF is part of the second proposal for transactional memory. Which is slightly superior to IBM's and Intel's implementation of transactional memory.

The time frame for the actual implementation of the non-experimental ASF, is either in the 2013 BD uarch(SR/XV) or the 2015 BD uarch(unknown)


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://techreport.com/news/25707/all-signs-point-to-kaveri-being-an-evolutionary-upgrade
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *The article*
> To begin with, Adam Kozak, AMD's marketing chief for client processors, told folks during a press briefing that Kaveri will be competitive with Intel's Core i5-4670K processor. (That's a $225 offering and the cheapest quad-core Haswell CPU with an unlocked upper multiplier.) When pressed for details after the briefing, however, Kozak clarified that Kaveri should only be equivalent in terms of combined CPU and GPU compute power. If one measures x86 performance on its own, Kozak said, "we'll lose." However, Kozak expects Kaveri's integrated graphics, bolstered with Mantle support, to be better than the latest version of Intel's HD Graphics.


Quote:


> Kozak wouldn't say much about pricing. However, AMD VP Manju Hegde offered a hint during an impromptu lunch chat. Referring to a stage demo in which a Kaveri APU was compared to a Core i7-4770K processor with GeForce GT 630 discrete graphics, Hegde said that Kaveri didn't do badly for a product that's "a third the cost." It's not entirely clear if Hegde was talking about manufacturing cost or retail pricing. However, the i7-4770K and GT 630 are worth $410 put together. A third of that would be around $137, which would be in the same ballpark as the current high end of the A-series APU lineup.


Quote:


> Then, during the aforementioned press briefing, there was also talk of "decent IPC [instruction per clock] gains" and support for DDR3-2133 memory. Finally, because Kaveri supports hUMA, it may deliver substantially better compute performance than Richland. Hegde claimed that usable gigaflops were "an order of magnitude higher" in Kaveri.


Not much we didn't already guess or know, just posting for the hell of it.


----------



## Papadope

All good news, I can't wait.








More than likely im going to buy 3 and see which one overclocks the best and keep that for my rig. The other 2 are going to run at stock.


----------



## Kuivamaa

If that's the price ,it is a very welcome surprise, still have my doubts though, sounds too good to be true,at least at launch. Getting an A10-7850k plus a 7770 for roughly the price of an i5-4670k alone sounds very appealing, If they sort out dual graphics that is.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> 
> 
> They are not even going to release a SR FX in 2015.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think Carizzo can be a 20 nm part. Don't forget that the Excavator module is gonna get some duplicated parts inside.[/quote
> 
> That is strictly your opinion. There is no released information on a road map for 2015. That means it is anyone's guess. It certainly makes sense for AMD to do 6 or 8 core APU for the mid to highend desktop at that time when they have more space available on their die and will have lower power requirements. AS I said it is not illogical for AMD to do so , especially when it is expected they will have large core excavator server chips coming to market in 2015.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I pretty much agree. After I saw the 45 & 65W TDP targets for Carrizo a couple months back, I kinda ruled out parts with more than 2 modules, but it's always possible...
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.


That tdp is only tied into a specific set of cpus. If they decide to do an FX line as well there is no reason to assume that the tdp for lower end excavators would impact whether an FX line is reinstitued.


----------



## DapperDan795

Some of this is above my realm of knowledge but what are the possibilities of Kaveri competing and/or beating Vishera Fx 8350?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Some of this is above my realm of knowledge but what are the possibilities of Kaveri competing and/or beating Vishera Fx 8350?


Without HSA it will be better for ST/poorly threaded duties and worse for well threaded ones. It will most likely be ahead in most non gpu limited games (Frostbite 3/Cryengine 3 games will be an exception) but well behind in multitasking, naturally.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is strictly your opinion. There is no released information on a road map for 2015. That means it is anyone's guess. It certainly makes sense for AMD to do 6 or 8 core APU for the mid to highend desktop at that time when they have more space available on their die and will have lower power requirements. AS I said it is not illogical for AMD to do so , especially when it is expected they will have large core excavator server chips coming to market in 2015.


It's not my opinion. This is what the latest roadmap says.

Forget the 6 or 8 core APU for desktop. HSA doesn't need 6 or 8 CPU cores. They are going to push the GPU side instead.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> It's not my opinion. This is what the latest roadmap says.
> 
> Forget the 6 or 8 core APU for desktop. HSA doesn't need 6 or 8 CPU cores. They are going to push the GPU side instead.


That's true, but if they make a 3 or 4 module APU for server's it will find its way onto the desktop.


----------



## Oliverda

I wouldn't be sure about that. If the die(s) too big then it's difficult. That's why we don't have 12-16 cores PD CPU in the desktop segment.


----------



## MrJava

Now I want to see the server roadmap into 2015. Do you happen to have one of those?


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> I wouldn't be sure about that. If the die(s) too big then it's difficult. That's why we don't have 12-16 cores PD CPU in the desktop segment.


Thats a good point but for the APU's, 2 Module's and GPU is still smaller than 4 modules (FX) even on the same node (32nm). When you add in 20nm and High Density Libraries or Ultra High Density Libraries they should be able to pull off 3 modules. They are not going to go crazy with Carrizo and throw in a 7850 size gpu. It remains to be seen how much Kaveri will be bottlenecked by DDR3 already.

A10-5800K - 246mm2
FX-8350 - 315mm2
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Now I want to see the server roadmap into 2015. Do you happen to have one of those?


I don't believe anything has been shown yet. It would make sense a new server platform would arrive in 2015 since DDR4 will be available for servers earlier than desktop. They could make the server APU with a dual IMC so it would be compatible with existing FM2+ and possibly a drop in for FM3 once DDR4 is mainstream.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> It's not my opinion. This is what the latest roadmap says.
> 
> Forget the 6 or 8 core APU for desktop. HSA doesn't need 6 or 8 CPU cores. They are going to push the GPU side instead.


Thing is this. Without more than 2 modules, AMD is gonna lose a big part of the crowd that doesn't use HSA related applications. And don't forget that mantle ,which is expected to reduce cpu load(and help even their 2 module APU to be relevant), will not be a part of some of the most popular (if not all) PC exclusives. They will need beefer CPUs if they want their brand to make it in at least midrange desktop configurations. Desktop is in decline but PC desktop gaming is flourishing. In other words, more and more desktops that are sold are gaming machines first and foremost. Two modules won't cut it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I think 4 cores will be enough for games in the foreseeable future. I can't see many games outside of 64~ player servers like BF requiring such heavy CPU grunt. And as we can see, AMD are still gonna be selling the FX Vishera chips for those who don't care about HSA, so if people want more cores, they could buy one of those.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> It's not my opinion. This is what the latest roadmap says.
> 
> Forget the 6 or 8 core APU for desktop. HSA doesn't need 6 or 8 CPU cores. They are going to push the GPU side instead.[/quote
> 
> You are an expert in misinterpretation. There is NO AMD roadmap released with information for 2015 on the desktop. Now either bite your tongue, or you can opt to apologize to everyone here for constantly misrepresenting facts.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Four cores have been the gaming standard since 2009-2010 already,it will only go downhill from here. DX9 is on its way out, gaming tendency towards more cores is so strong that I am pretty sure AMD will offer more in the future. They either wait for 20nm to make a laptop capable hexacore APU or wait for a viable multicore opteron line that can be brought to desktop. If neither is the case, my next build (i expect AM3+ to see me through 2015) will be some sort of i7


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I think 4 cores will be enough for games in the foreseeable future. I can't see many games outside of 64~ player servers like BF requiring such heavy CPU grunt. And as we can see, AMD are still gonna be selling the FX Vishera chips for those who don't care about HSA, so if people want more cores, they could buy one of those.


May well b. But I am an adult. I spend most of my time with multimedia and browsing on highly graphical webites. For my encoding work 4 cores is wholly inadequate.


----------



## NaroonGTX

All I'm saying is don't be shocked when AMD continues to announce new parts that don't have more than 4 cores in them. I find this strange with their recent focus on gaming and everything.

More people will just end up going to Intel and getting i7's due to this.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Four cores have been the gaming standard since 2009-2010 already,it will only go downhill from here. DX9 is on its way out, gaming tendency towards more cores is so strong that I am pretty sure AMD will offer more in the future. They either wait for 20nm to make a laptop capable hexacore APU or wait for a viable multicore opteron line that can be brought to desktop. If neither is the case, my next build (i expect AM3+ to see me through 2015) will be some sort of i7


I'll go custom loop APU delidded, overclocked to within .001v of its life before I get an i7. That may just be my kaveri build.


----------



## NaroonGTX




----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> All I'm saying is don't be shocked when AMD continues to announce new parts that don't have more than 4 cores in them. I find this strange with their recent focus on gaming and everything.
> 
> More people will just end up going to Intel and getting i7's due to this.


There's nothing else for AMD to release. Don't underestimate the development time of these products, from conception to release of a chip is around 3 - 4 years. I'm guessing a lot of the products that were set for 2013-2014 were canned or delayed for one reason or another (turnover, people being shuffled between projects etc.).


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You are an expert in misinterpretation. There is NO AMD roadmap released with information for 2015 on the desktop. Now either bite your tongue, or you can opt to apologize to everyone here for constantly misrepresenting facts.


Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:



I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.

You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


----------



## Kuivamaa

By 2015 vishera will be legacy and sold for peanuts, just like Athlon II X2 280, regor dual core built on 45nm that was introduced early 2013. It will be cheap I bet, sub 100$ but meant only for those left on AM3+, that don't already have something similar. Those already on vishera hexacores and octocores will simply jump ship to intel around that time.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> All I'm saying is don't be shocked when AMD continues to announce new parts that don't have more than 4 cores in them. I find this strange with their recent focus on gaming and everything.
> 
> More people will just end up going to Intel and getting i7's due to this.


well mantle will remove the cpu bottleneck for slow cpus.
The strange part however is that they went all we run great with 8 or more cores under Mantle then dropped it from their line up. (and nobody is going to buy Piledriver in the future if there is a new vastly better arch out there (people did it with Intel because they are sheeps and think 6 cores is something special...))

Intel's Sandy bridge enthusiast procs were not that much better than the Nehalem gen before that and it got even less impressive in terms of gain with ivy.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, it's pretty weird. I think quads will be great for gamers well into the future, even moreso with Mantle. I don't care for BF4 at all (BC2 is still better imo







) but I'm interested in seeing how much Mantle lessens the CPU impact for 64man MP. If Intel quads are keeping up with and surpassing AMD's current hexa and octocores, I don't see why Kaveri and Carrizo would be bad for gamers. We know that Intel's SMT doesn't necessarily scale as high as CMT or CMP as well.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Yeah, it's pretty weird. I think quads will be great for gamers well into the future, even moreso with Mantle. I don't care for BF4 at all (BC2 is still better imo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ) but I'm interested in seeing how much Mantle lessens the CPU impact for 64man MP. If Intel quads are keeping up with and surpassing AMD's current hexa and octocores, I don't see why Kaveri and Carrizo would be bad for gamers. We know that Intel's SMT doesn't necessarily scale as high as CMT or CMP as well.


Its not just gaming. AMD is soon to be kicked out of the server room (apart from niche cases with APUs and microservers) without high-core count CPUs on a uarch that can at least get close to intel's.


----------



## Papadope

I don't think AMD will ever recover in the server space atleast in x86. Performance per watt is critical here and I don't see them ever catching Intel on that front. Like you said it will be niche, server apu's and arm based server chips from AMD. It's a niche now, only reason to get a AMD server is for virtualization do to pure core count. That's only going to get worse as intel ramps up core counts and lowers power consumption even further.

Only reason for them to even bother is high margins and some chips can be brought to desktop for consumers.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Latest desktop roadmap by AMD:
> 
> 
> 
> I hope you can clearly see year 2015 on it.
> 
> You can still buy Vishera FX in 2015 if you want more that 4 cores.


Unless this came from AMD press release or website I give it little credence.If it should turn out to be true that there will be nothing other than 4 cores available AMD will be losing almost all of it's enthusiast base within the next 18 months.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, AMD won't be able to magically make a comeback in that space and they know it. Seems logical for them to focus on market segments they could actually compete in rather than wasting R&D resources trying to futilely catch back up with Intel.


----------



## Papadope

os2wiz, Did you ever get an answer from inquiring about where Kaveri is being manufactured? I know from ES its GlobalFoundries @ Dresden, just wondering if it's confirmed for production chips as well.


----------



## sdlvx

Yeah, but by giving up those markets they're limiting HSA to low end budget platform. AMD needs a high end HSA enabled platform that scales beyond 4 traditional cores if they want to see HSA be adopted in professional workspace and with gamers. You know, the two big markets that actually care about performance instead of power consumption, weight, and mobility.

Gaming rigs with Intel CPUs + AMD GPUs do nothing for HSA adoption.

AMD is going to have a very tough sale if they have to convince people to run specific HSA software for performance gains while giving up performance in traditional software on the scale of going from Intel hex core to Kaveri level 4 core.

I am really, really hoping they aren't stupid enough to do this. Even if AMD released an FX SR class part on an HSA platform and the traditional CPU performance was lacking compared to Intel, they'd at least have the HSA card to play.

I will say I wouldn't be surprised. I am quite used to thinking of what AMD should be doing and then watching them completely butcher it. Much like how I thought they would wait to bring 7990 out until they had good drivers with frame pacing and they released 7990 with broken drivers and everyone laughed, it tarnished the Radeon brand, etc.

Regardless of the roadmap I still feel that it's a bad idea for AMD to neglect this market entirely. I can see them giving up big x86 server chips but gaming is growing massively and AMD going APU only is setting them up as the bargain brand where people "upgrade" to the Intel platform if they want a real GPU. At this time you can still build a totally high end gaming rig around nothing but AMD hardware.

As it stands right now FX loses most benchmarks against what it's normally pitted against ($300 Intel for some reason) but it is still viable.

It also doesn't make a lot of sense for what AMD is doing with Mantle. DX has a bottleneck scaling beyond about 3 threads. Which would make 2m/4c parts like Kaveri perfect for classic style games as it has two or three cores for rendering and then one big one for the main application.

But AMD is off making games scale well beyond 4 cores. PS4 is pulling 150w tops when gaming. There is no reason why AMD couldn't have just given them a 2m/4c Kaveri or PD cores + GCN around 65w or 95w and opted for better single thread over more multi-thread performance.

The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me. They'd throw away their enthusiast market, relegate themselves to more or a value position than they are in now, and people (including AMD) are saying they're done competing with Intel yet they keep comparing Kaveri to 4770k and comparing it to Intel. How do you not compete with someone and then compare yourself to it?

A lot of what AMD is doing doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I am just overthinking it and it really is as simple as AMD going "zomg look at this graph ARM and mobile growing FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE!" I kind of thought Read was smarter than that though.

But the bottom line is that if AMD doesn't come through with a high end HSA platform, Intel is going to completely quash HSA with Xeon Phi for anyone with a decent budget and looking for a chip more expensive than $150.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I don't think AMD will ever recover in the server space atleast in x86. Performance per watt is critical here and I don't see them ever catching Intel on that front. Like you said it will be niche, server apu's and arm based server chips from AMD. It's a niche now, only reason to get a AMD server is for virtualization do to pure core count. That's only going to get worse as intel ramps up core counts and lowers power consumption even further.
> 
> Only reason for them to even bother is high margins and some chips can be brought to desktop for consumers.


Kabini already was stronger than Intel's(1.2x in cpu and a lot in gpu) offerings and consumed about 1.8 times the power Beema will effectively halve the power usage under low load.
The power consumption will drop even further if they start delivering 14nm based ultra mobile procs in Q3 2014 (rumour)

They need an 8 way unified platform with excavator and excavator needs to match ivy bridge IPS then just put 10 modules per proc and it'll be golden (dublin would have had 10 steamroller modules so maybe 12 is doable by then)

Or go full IBM and make a 650mm^2 chip and just dump 20 modules on them








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Unless this came from AMD press release or website I give it little credence.If it should turn out to be true that there will be nothing other than 4 cores available AMD will be losing almost all of it's enthusiast base within the next 18 months.


well those things are subject to change anyways.

Jim Keller hinted at them not abandoning the true high end but I think they will abandon X86 only no HSA by 2016 for HSA should've gone on an arch level so that it can outsource even non optimized code and the proc can really shine under optimized code it would make sense.

I think as soon as Intel drops their 8 core chips for enthusiasts (stupid enthusiasts that dump 1K on a chip that can be destroyed by some xeons for way cheaper) that then AMD will drop their FX Excavator


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Unless this came from AMD press release or website I give it little credence.If it should turn out to be true that there will be nothing other than 4 cores available AMD will be losing almost all of it's enthusiast base within the next 18 months.


Agreed. I'll believe it when we have an official roadmap. Another poster commented on the other strange things in the roadmap such as Beema being the low-power APU all the way through 2015.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I don't think AMD will ever recover in the server space atleast in x86. Performance per watt is critical here and I don't see them ever catching Intel on that front.


If they can't catch intel on perf/watt then they'll be driven out of every market segment eventually. I'm just saying it would be a paradigm shift for AMD's business strategy if they don't offer new high-core count Opterons going forward. Sure, they may be APUs but you still need as many cores as possible to run SQL databases, web servers, business analytics, Java EE and .NET apps, virtual machines and the like. Having a GPU on-die will not help in any of those situations.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If they can't catch intel on perf/watt then they'll be driven out of every market segment eventually. I'm just saying it would be a paradigm shift for AMD's business strategy if they don't offer new high-core count Opterons going forward. Sure, they may be APUs but you still need as many cores as possible to run SQL databases, web servers, business analytics, Java EE and .NET apps, virtual machines and the like. Having a GPU on-die will not help in any of those situations.


I'm going to be that guy... it could if the programs where optimized too... HSA type theories buuuut only if adopted


----------



## iamwardicus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Kabini already was stronger than Intel's(1.2x in cpu and a lot in gpu) offerings and consumed about 1.8 times the power Beema will effectively halve the power usage under low load.
> The power consumption will drop even further if they start delivering 14nm based ultra mobile procs in Q3 2014 (rumour)
> 
> They need an 8 way unified platform with excavator and excavator needs to match ivy bridge IPS then just put 10 modules per proc and it'll be golden (dublin would have had 10 steamroller modules so maybe 12 is doable by then)
> 
> Or go full IBM and make a 650mm^2 chip and just dump 20 modules on them
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> well those things are subject to change anyways.
> 
> Jim Keller hinted at them not abandoning the true high end but I think they will abandon X86 only no HSA by 2016 for HSA should've gone on an arch level so that it can outsource even non optimized code and the proc can really shine under optimized code it would make sense.
> 
> I think as soon as Intel drops their 8 core chips for enthusiasts (stupid enthusiasts that dump 1K on a chip that can be destroyed by some xeons for way cheaper) that then AMD will drop their FX Excavator


Personally I'm hoping that if AMD will not go with any 8 core APUs that they engineer anything newer to have the potential for multiple socket motherboards. I for one would be all over a dual or quad socket APU motherboard. (and forget the crossfire thing, I'd figure that the graphics part of the chip would be exclusively dedicated to HSA functions in a dual/quad socket solution.) should they ever allow us that option (Even on the server segment.... I'll take an Opteron type chip if it were unlocked. It's not in the roadmaps sadly so it won't happen, but I can dream).

Regardless of their response to the high performance based market, I'll be looking forward to getting a Kaveri based laptop in the future.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I'm going to be that guy... it could if the programs where optimized too... HSA type theories buuuut only if adopted


Maybe for databases and big data analytics type stuff. Otherwise cloud/enterprise software wants MOAR COARS - and there's no substitute for that.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Kabini already was stronger than Intel's(1.2x in cpu and a lot in gpu) offerings and consumed about 1.8 times the power Beema will effectively halve the power usage under low load.
> The power consumption will drop even further if they start delivering 14nm based ultra mobile procs in Q3 2014 (rumour)
> 
> They need an 8 way unified platform with excavator and excavator needs to match ivy bridge IPS then just put 10 modules per proc and it'll be golden (dublin would have had 10 steamroller modules so maybe 12 is doable by then)
> 
> Or go full IBM and make a 650mm^2 chip and just dump 20 modules on them
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> well those things are subject to change anyways.
> 
> Jim Keller hinted at them not abandoning the true high end but I think they will abandon X86 only no HSA by 2016 for HSA should've gone on an arch level so that it can outsource even non optimized code and the proc can really shine under optimized code it would make sense.
> 
> I think as soon as Intel drops their 8 core chips for enthusiasts (stupid enthusiasts that dump 1K on a chip that can be destroyed by some xeons for way cheaper) that then AMD will drop their FX Excavator


The problem is that the savings on the xeons are more than eroded by the cost of the server motherboard.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Kabini already was stronger than Intel's(1.2x in cpu and a lot in gpu) offerings and consumed about 1.8 times the power Beema will effectively halve the power usage under low load.
> The power consumption will drop even further if they start delivering 14nm based ultra mobile procs in Q3 2014 (rumour)
> 
> They need an 8 way unified platform with excavator and excavator needs to match ivy bridge IPS then just put 10 modules per proc and it'll be golden (dublin would have had 10 steamroller modules so maybe 12 is doable by then)
> 
> Or go full IBM and make a 650mm^2 chip and just dump 20 modules on them
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> well those things are subject to change anyways.
> 
> Jim Keller hinted at them not abandoning the true high end but I think they will abandon X86 only no HSA by 2016 for HSA should've gone on an arch level so that it can outsource even non optimized code and the proc can really shine under optimized code it would make sense.
> 
> I think as soon as Intel drops their 8 core chips for enthusiasts (stupid enthusiasts that dump 1K on a chip that can be destroyed by some xeons for way cheaper) that then AMD will drop their FX Excavator


You made a very cogent argument and Iwill keep a positive mindset in spite of these fake roadmaps. The beema chips being the low power mobile chipuntil the end of 2015 as one user pointed out is impossibly ridiculous and belies the credibilty of this conjured "road map". This rewriting of history speaks volumes about the intellect and character of the diletantes that are in effect space occupying lesions on this forum. "I heard it on the internet so it must be true" .


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Jim Keller hinted at them not abandoning the true high end but I think they will abandon X86 only no HSA by 2016 for HSA should've gone on an arch level so that it can outsource even non optimized code and the proc can really shine under optimized code it would make sense.
> 
> I think as soon as Intel drops their 8 core chips for enthusiasts (stupid enthusiasts that dump 1K on a chip that can be destroyed by some xeons for way cheaper) that then AMD will drop their FX Excavator


HSA is hardware implementation and has nothing to do with x86. You are totally confused as to what HSA, x86 and x86-64 are if you think they are related at all.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> HSA is hardware implementation and has nothing to do with x86. You are totally confused as to what HSA, x86 and x86-64 are if you think they are related at all.


His grammar was a bit muddled, you are misinterpreting his remarks.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> HSA is hardware implementation and has nothing to do with x86. You are totally confused as to what HSA, x86 and x86-64 are if you think they are related at all.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> His grammar was a bit muddled, you are misinterpreting his remarks.


Indeed what I was trying to say is that by 2016 AMD is likely to have the GPU and CPU working together on such a level that normal non accelerated code can be outsourced effectively turning non optimized code in something closer to optimized code.

Developers need to work with it so they have to make it as easy as possible and what is easier for developers than have them stay in what they are doing. (if somebody want the better optimization effort has to be made as with anything)

@Os2wiz
Yeah the multi socket boards usually costs a rib I myself buy from a retailer in germany back in 2008 I got my E5520's and Asus z8na-d6 for 750 euros a killer deal.
8 way Dublin or 8 way Ivy-ex would be interesting both would rule all the Bigadv I could throw at it


----------



## NaroonGTX

I wouldn't rule out the roadmap myself so quickly. I remember several people telling me that they saw a very similar roadmap at the IDF event earlier this year. It also goes hand in hand with the previous Digitimes leaks (which have so far been right about most of the things that they mentioned.)


----------



## anubis44

I've seen products suddenly appear on AMD product timelines before. If Jim Keller says they're not abandoning big cores, then I believe him, no matter what some slide is indicating. Maybe Jim didn't want to show his hand prematurely? He probably has something up his sleeve. This IS the man who gave us the AMD Athlon 64, after all.

The other possibility is that Mantle will negate the importance of CPUs so dramatically that AMD actually sees more performance gains available with their Kaveri APUs and their integrated Radeon cores coupled with a dedicated Radeon graphics card than with a normal x86 CPU design alone paired up with a graphics card. After all, no CPU can perform floating point as quickly as a graphics card. It's what Radeon cores were made for.

Something tells me AMD still has an ace up their sleeve, and they're just on the verge of playing it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

'Big cores' are in Kaveri and will be in Carrizo. Big cores = Piledriver, Steamroller, Exacavator ~ Little cores = Cat family, Kabini, Beema, etc.

As for Mr. Keller, we most likely won't see his work on actual processor design until post-Excavator.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I wouldn't rule out the roadmap myself so quickly. I remember several people telling me that they saw a very similar roadmap at the IDF event earlier this year. It also goes hand in hand with the previous Digitimes leaks (which have so far been right about most of the things that they mentioned.)


Except that this "leak" has not been attributed to DigiTimes has it?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> 
> 
> They are not even going to release a SR FX in 2015.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think Carizzo can be a 20 nm part. Don't forget that the Excavator module is gonna get some duplicated parts inside.


You have failed to identify the source for this purported road map. No sourcee, no believee.


----------



## NaroonGTX

My point was that the content of the map itself matches up with those leaks, such as no further mention of new FX processors being mentioned in the confidential roadmaps. In fact those same sources were where the Carrizo info (codename, TDP figures, etc.) came from.


----------



## MacLeod

Even if that roadmap is genuine, didn't the 2013 roadmap change like a half dozen times? These roadmaps don't necessarily have to mean it's written in stone do they? AMD abandoning the top segment doesn't seem to make sense to any one of us. Is there any chance AMD has something up its sleeve a little later and just doesn't have it on a roadmap yet?

Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Even if that roadmap is genuine, didn't the 2013 roadmap change like a half dozen times? These roadmaps don't necessarily have to mean it's written in stone do they? AMD abandoning the top segment doesn't seem to make sense to any one of us. Is there any chance AMD has something up its sleeve a little later and just doesn't have it on a roadmap yet?
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


That is what I like to believe. I feel 6 months after kaveri hits retail we will hear more


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, AMD changes their roadmaps every two seconds, so we really can't take this roadmap (whether it's real or not) as gospel. The 2013 roadmaps all were modified at least 4 or 5 times IIRC, lol.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Even if that roadmap is genuine, didn't the 2013 roadmap change like a half dozen times? These roadmaps don't necessarily have to mean it's written in stone do they? AMD abandoning the top segment doesn't seem to make sense to any one of us. Is there any chance AMD has something up its sleeve a little later and just doesn't have it on a roadmap yet?
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Note 2.


Usually when the roadmaps change, things get subtracted or pushed back, not added or pulled forward.


----------



## Oliverda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> You have failed to identify the source for this purported road map. No sourcee, no believee.


Really sorry Mr. Boss, I was just sleeping.









Here is the official AMD source:







Do not believe if you don't want. I won't give you more proof.

If you're still expecting new 4+ x86 cores desktop processor from AMD then you will be disappointed. You're gonna get better performance with an APU combined with HSA/OpenCL supported apps anyway. Welcome to the future.









P.S.: Please don't shoot at the messenger.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Indeed what I was trying to say is that by 2016 AMD is likely to have the GPU and CPU working together on such a level that normal non accelerated code can be outsourced effectively turning non optimized code in something closer to optimized code.
> 
> Developers need to work with it so they have to make it as easy as possible and what is easier for developers than have them stay in what they are doing. (if somebody want the better optimization effort has to be made as with anything)
> 
> @Os2wiz
> Yeah the multi socket boards usually costs a rib I myself buy from a retailer in germany back in 2008 I got my E5520's and Asus z8na-d6 for 750 euros a killer deal.
> 8 way Dublin or 8 way Ivy-ex would be interesting both would rule all the Bigadv I could throw at it


Thanks for making it clear, maat









HSA and HUMA will negate a lot of the problems we have with high performance chips. I don't know how it will work in the future but multi terraflop CPU's will be a possibility thanks to HSA.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Thanks for making it clear, maat
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HSA and HUMA will negate a lot of the problems we have with high performance chips. I don't know how it will work in the future but multi terraflop CPU's will be a possibility thanks to HSA.


mmmm teraflop


----------



## MrJava

Oliverda, can you post thumbnails from the rest of the slides. It looks like it may be of some interest to us. Or is it under NDA?

Thanks.

Edit:
nvm looks like the slides we saw at APU13.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Really sorry Mr. Boss, I was just sleeping.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is the official AMD source:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do not believe if you don't want. I won't give you more proof.
> 
> If you're still expecting new 4+ x86 cores desktop processor from AMD then you will be disappointed. You're gonna get better performance with an APU combined with HSA/OpenCL supported apps anyway. Welcome to the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.S.: Please don't shoot at the messenger.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Oliverda*
> 
> Really sorry Mr. Boss, I was just sleeping.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is the official AMD source:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do not believe if you don't want. I won't give you more proof.
> 
> If you're still expecting new 4+ x86 cores desktop processor from AMD then you will be disappointed. You're gonna get better performance with an APU combined with HSA/OpenCL supported apps anyway. Welcome to the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> P.S.: Please don't shoot at the messenger.


You are not entirely correct. Yes HSA may well be the future, I hope so. But it still has many hurdles to surpass before ti has widespread adoption. It is not clear that HSA alone will surpass productivity of an 8 core cpu for highly threaded applications.Even if it does, an 8 core HSA empowered cpu will definitely outgun a 4 core HSA empowered cpu for multi-threaded apps.


----------



## MrJava

@Oliverda

Lol, the ever-diligent writers at PCPer are quoting your simulated Kaveri benchmarks as real.

http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/AMD-A10-7850K-and-A10-7700K-Kaveri-Leaks-Including-Initial-GPU-Benchmarks


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> @Oliverda
> 
> Lol, the ever-diligent writers at PCPer are quoting your simulated Kaveri benchmarks as real.
> 
> http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/AMD-A10-7850K-and-A10-7700K-Kaveri-Leaks-Including-Initial-GPU-Benchmarks










Because crosschecking seems to be a lost art for IT sites these days.


----------



## Roph

Sigh, AMD. I don't want a slow, weak GPU. When I buy a CPU, I want a CPU. Don't waste silicon forcing me to also take a ****ty GPU that I will not use.

Intel is the same. I'd have to get an extreme edition to avoid being forced to buy a GPU I don't want or need. 12 core 28nm steamroller AM3+ FX please :/ Then maybe 16 core 20nm excavator, on AM4 with DDR4.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Roph*
> 
> Sigh, AMD. I don't want a slow, weak GPU. When I buy a CPU, I want a CPU. Don't waste silicon forcing me to also take a ****ty GPU that I will not use.
> 
> Intel is the same. I'd have to get an extreme edition to avoid being forced to buy a GPU I don't want or need. 12 core 28nm steamroller AM3+ FX please :/ Then maybe 16 core 20nm excavator, on AM4 with DDR4.


Nobody's stopping you from buying an LGA 2011 board and CPU.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Roph*
> 
> Sigh, AMD. I don't want a slow, weak GPU. When I buy a CPU, I want a CPU. Don't waste silicon forcing me to also take a ****ty GPU that I will not use.
> 
> Intel is the same. I'd have to get an extreme edition to avoid being forced to buy a GPU I don't want or need. 12 core 28nm steamroller AM3+ FX please :/ Then maybe 16 core 20nm excavator, on AM4 with DDR4.


At least with AMD you get a GPU that can accelerate the CPU while also able to stack with a GCN card under Mantle games (which might be all future games for not having to worry about threading and draw calls is great as a dev)

Also I don't think AM3+ will be getting something based on a new core I think we would be looking at AM4 or FM2+ or FM3 since the platform is just too neglected.


----------



## heroxoot

I put off upgrading from bulldozer. If something doesn't change I'm switching to Intel. I really want steamroller to hit already.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I put off upgrading from bulldozer. If something doesn't change I'm switching to Intel. I really want steamroller to hit already.


Unless you are waiting APUs you might as well go at least 9 months or longer than kaveri APU which should release in a month or 2


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I put off upgrading from bulldozer. If something doesn't change I'm switching to Intel. I really want steamroller to hit already.
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you are waiting APUs you might as well go at least 9 months or longer than kaveri APU which should release in a month or 2
Click to expand...

God no. I have no reason to buy a wounded CPU with built on graphics. But piledriver is not enough of an upgrade IMO. 8150 - 8350 isn't even 25%.


----------



## MrJava

I think he was suggesting you go intel as there's no chance of anything new on your current socket/mobo.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I think he was suggesting you go intel as there's no chance of anything new on your current socket/mobo.


Pretty much this. Please 8320 is a good deal at but if you are looking for Sr on am3+ you have a good wile if it happens.. look at the past releases between APU the cpu big core.. There is minimum 7 to 9 months in between. So if there is a Sr core for am3+ then it will most likely drop August to october


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Roph*
> 
> Sigh, AMD. I don't want a slow, weak GPU. When I buy a CPU, I want a CPU. Don't waste silicon forcing me to also take a ****ty GPU that I will not use.
> 
> Intel is the same. I'd have to get an extreme edition to avoid being forced to buy a GPU I don't want or need. 12 core 28nm steamroller AM3+ FX please :/ Then maybe 16 core 20nm excavator, on AM4 with DDR4.


Hehe but you could crossfire that igp with dgpu.. which is slightly better than just dgpu


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> I think he was suggesting you go intel as there's no chance of anything new on your current socket/mobo.
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty much this. Please 8320 is a good deal at but if you are looking for Sr on am3+ you have a good wile if it happens.. look at the past releases between APU the cpu big core.. There is minimum 7 to 9 months in between. So if there is a Sr core for am3+ then it will most likely drop August to october
Click to expand...

Yea I got what he was getting at. I'm not spending hundreds more on an intel cpu that games for me the same. I just had really high hopes. Hopefully with these setbacks and the edition of bridgeless GPU, amd assures PCIE 3.0 on the next socket.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Yea I got what he was getting at. I'm not spending hundreds more on an intel cpu that games for me the same. I just had really high hopes. Hopefully with these setbacks and the edition of bridgeless GPU, amd assures PCIE 3.0 on the next socket.


Hehe next socket is fm2+ am3+ may see one more chip but after that it is all apu..


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Yea I got what he was getting at. I'm not spending hundreds more on an intel cpu that games for me the same. I just had really high hopes. Hopefully with these setbacks and the edition of bridgeless GPU, amd assures PCIE 3.0 on the next socket.
> 
> 
> 
> Hehe next socket is fm2+ am3+ may see one more chip but after that it is all apu..
Click to expand...

I heard its more like they will be doing both but it will be 1 socket for either CPU or APU.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I heard its more like they will be doing both but it will be 1 socket for either CPU or APU.


Guess that's more of what I should have said.. for instance the Athlone 750 or whatever it is


----------



## heroxoot

Yea I'm 100% ok with that. To be honest I need a new mobo eventually anyway. This one is a replacement for a 890. My warranty is gone so I have to love it while I can and treat it well.


----------



## MrJava

Don't hold your breath, AM3+ is a dead socket.

I think the real problem with APUs for OCN users is that you won't be able to win any EPEEN contests with it. Since most games today use between 2 and 4 threads heavily, the CPU in the APU is more than sufficient especially given that per thread performance is appreciably higher with SR.


----------



## DapperDan795

I wonder if more FM2+ mobos will be coming? The two highend Gigabyte boards look pretty damn good, especially the black and red. Asus seems be sticking with the black and gold which is just not for me. As I said before, I have an FX-8350 currently but new and shiny processors are always fun to play with.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Don't hold your breath, AM3+ is a dead socket.
> 
> I think the real problem with APUs for OCN users is that you won't be able to win any EPEEN contests with it. Since most games today use between 2 and 4 threads heavily, the CPU in the APU is more than sufficient especially given that per thread performance is appreciably higher with SR.


Exactly. AMD definitely wants 1 socket to end them all. I agree with this completely. Having 1 socket for both would make motherboard selection amazing. Currently I have seen some mobos for FM2 that have options nicer than some Full size ATX Am3+ boards. One asus FM2 board is really tiny and can even use XMP profiles. My motherboard got that in a recent bios update and its a OC mobo.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Don't hold your breath, AM3+ is a dead socket.
> 
> I think the real problem with APUs for OCN users is that you won't be able to win any EPEEN contests with it. Since most games today use between 2 and 4 threads heavily, the CPU in the APU is more than sufficient especially given that per thread performance is appreciably higher with SR.


Currently mining litecoins while baking textures. HSA doesn't do anything for me. In fact it will never do anything for me because Blender has no motivation to add texture baking to Cycles renderer and that's the only one that's GPU accelerated. In fact, neither almost every other renderer. So you've basically canned anyone who isn't working in a nice game engine and is developing games. So AMD APU, into the trash it goes for developing games.

The problem with HSA is that it offers significant speedup for tasks that are currently already held back my high end hardware. It's currently 8:30pm where I'm at and I'm still waiting for a texture bake to finish up, which I started around 2pm.

AMD going APU only for HSA puts HSA in a very awkward position, because it is now low end hardware getting a big boost.

http://mainitials.com/2013/09/30/cinebench-r15-with-6800k/

Take a look. Even with a 5x speedup with HSA It's still barely faster than Intel Xeons in an extremely optimal situation. However when you don't have HSA that little 6800k APU would get absolutely destroyed.

This is the problem with HSA and APU only. It'll be the same problem in workstations as well. If AMD were to go with an HSA platform that still offered very good CPU performance with HSA they could sell a lot of hardware to professional markets at massive mark ups and profit margins.

I am looking forward to HSA like most of you are, but you have to remember that AMD is showing us the very best, most optimal situations for HSA to shine. It will not translate across all workloads and if AMD goes APU only those workloads that don't consist of HSA will be absolutely horrible on AMD hardware.

Years ago I would have said that AMD wouldn't be stupid enough to do screw up like that but they've proved me wrong time and time again by doing really stupid things.

Yes the Kaveri will handle BF4 fine (from what we've seen, which has all been single player) when mantle is enabled (at least it should), but what happens when it isn't?

You do realize every review will then have a mix of mantle and non-mantle games and the chip is going to get roasted for its performance in non-mantle games compared to what Intel offers, right? Do you really think hardware sites are going to sit back and recommend SR APU for any sort of high end gaming rig when it's going to be behind significantly in non-mantle titles?

And that's not even addressing gaming. If you're reading a review and the chip does well in some programs and gets absolutely wrecked in others, is it going to look good? And have you stopped to realize that AMD already has a massive problem with getting review sites to run AMD friendly software, let alone software that isn't slathered in Intel libraries and compilers, and that trying to get review sites to sell AMD hardware with HSA software is going to be nearly impossible?

I can already see Anandtech now, "AMD APU is great with HSA but we couldn't find enough mature software that uses it and it's significantly behind Intel in traditional CPU workloads, so we're going to have to only suggest this if you're on a very tight budget. The chip also struggles in non Mantle games, so you're limiting your existing backlog of games with this chip and you could see a downgrade if you're coming from Intel."

It'd be an absolutely bloodbath.

FM2+ is not the unified socket everyone is looking for. The chipset doesn't have enough PCIe lanes, the max TDP is too low, and it's clearly missing features that it would need (like dual APU) to leave anything beyond a budget gaming rig that is really fast at a few niche HSA applications and slow at everything else.

I'm growing really sour over AMD's plans right now because limiting HSA to mid range at best parts means that the whole thing isn't going anywhere. Somewhere along the line people are going to have to make a decision to take massive performance hits in non-HSA applications for the speedup offered by HSA. Which isn't going to be a lot of people because it's pretty difficult to explain that you need to spend money to make something slower in some situations.


----------



## Durquavian

You are missing the big picture, which is odd because I thought youd be the first to get it. HSA is a good thing less for implementation and more for getting some code for AMD aka: killing off ICC dominance.. I have no plans to discard my 8350 for a Kaveri in the near future. However with HSA we may finally get some programs that actually have code for AMDs strong suits and less emphasis on Intels incredibly biased ICC. With the consoles gaming may finally utilize AMD CPUs to their full potential or rather better than what we had before: X87 (Skyrim - I love by the way) single thread/poorly optimized ( WOW/SC2 ) and so on. Mantle as well has shown us that AMD is getting that boost without waiting for GloFo and TSMC to make hardware advances and rather use software Cheats, if you will.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Don't hold your breath, AM3+ is a dead socket.
> 
> I think the real problem with APUs for OCN users is that you won't be able to win any EPEEN contests with it. Since most games today use between 2 and 4 threads heavily, the CPU in the APU is more than sufficient especially given that per thread performance is appreciably higher with SR.


My issue is not gaming, but inadequate multithreaded performance in the 4 core apu. I brought this up before and you failed to negate my argument. HSA has not been adopted in any significant way yet and optimistically it will be at least 2 years before it is. So that does not justify AMD not offering 6 or8 core apus for the desktop. They can't just play to the gamers and ignore those who do serious work with their computers.


----------



## MrJava

Never said this was perfect for video or rendering or CAD or what have you. I said it was probably the best choice on the AMD side for the majority of games.

Of course for anything where more hardware threads = better, you can buy an FX or an i7. There's really no point in complaining, whatever new 4+ module Steamroller CPU was planned for this year was either killed or delayed till 2015 at the earliest.

It just so happens that AMD is not totally screwed because Kaveri/Beema/Mullins will satisfy most of the desktop/notebook/tablet market.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> My issue is not gaming, but inadequate multithreaded performance in the 4 core apu. I brought this up before and you failed to negate my argument. HSA has not been adopted in any significant way yet and optimistically it will be at least 2 years before it is. So that does not justify AMD not offering 6 or8 core apus for the desktop. They can't just play to the gamers and ignore those who do serious work with their computers.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Never said this was perfect for video or rendering or CAD or what have you. I said it was probably the best choice on the AMD side for the majority of games.
> 
> Of course for anything where more hardware threads = better, you can buy an FX or an i7. There's really no point in complaining, whatever new 4+ module Steamroller CPU was planned for this year was either killed or delayed till 2015 at the earliest.
> 
> It just so happens that AMD is not totally screwed because Kaveri/Beema/Mullins will satisfy most of the desktop/notebook/tablet market.


Ialready had accepted the fact there would be no hexa or octo core apus for 2014. My issue is the possibility looms there may be none for 2015 as well. That irks me totally.


----------



## heroxoot

Honestly neither FX variants are bad (bulldozer or steamroller) they just aren't as good as intel at single threading. And I mean come on, what do I need single threading for? I'm already seeing good things with BF4....when it wants to run.


----------



## D0ppelganger

Well folks, this just in! It looks like chances are very high that AMD is abandoning the high end and focusing on their APU lineup. http://www.techpowerup.com/195355/vishera-end-of-the-line-for-amd-fx-cpus-roadmap.html


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> You are missing the big picture, which is odd because I thought youd be the first to get it. HSA is a good thing less for implementation and more for getting some code for AMD aka: killing off ICC dominance.. I have no plans to discard my 8350 for a Kaveri in the near future. However with HSA we may finally get some programs that actually have code for AMDs strong suits and less emphasis on Intels incredibly biased ICC. With the consoles gaming may finally utilize AMD CPUs to their full potential or rather better than what we had before: X87 (Skyrim - I love by the way) single thread/poorly optimized ( WOW/SC2 ) and so on. Mantle as well has shown us that AMD is getting that boost without waiting for GloFo and TSMC to make hardware advances and rather use software Cheats, if you will.


Yeah, but the thing is that by only releasing 2m/4c AMD is throwing that all away. They've been running around saying "we're done competing directly with Intel" and now they're about to ignore their many weak cores architecture and focus on making a few strong cores.

Not to mention that as MrJava pointed out indirectly, the kind of people who are buying APUs, which are the only HSA platform out there right now, aren't the types of people who are concerned with rendering or transcoding or anything like that.

Meaning that HSA, if AMD doesn't go beyond APU again, is relegated to gaming for mid range and budget. Meaning that it's not going to solve the only types of problems that are plaguing high performance x86 desktops, and that Intel and AMD seem to have completely abandoned.

My problem is that AMD is stupid enough to do something like that and just drop out of dCPU. I'm not saying I'm 100% sure of anything going either way. THe last time I speculated on a major AMD product was 7990. I remember going "AMD is going to fix their drivers, it should be a huge priority to grab a halo product like this." and they released it with broken drivers and it got completely ravaged. To the point where it was a total failure.

Which really irks me because if AMD had their drivers in better order and they weren't at the very least selling $999 graphics cards with beta drivers, it might have actually been a decent product. Niche, but decent.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *D0ppelganger*
> 
> Well folks, this just in! It looks like chances are very high that AMD is abandoning the high end and focusing on their APU lineup. http://www.techpowerup.com/195355/vishera-end-of-the-line-for-amd-fx-cpus-roadmap.html


We've been discussing this for several pages. However "AMD is going to not release new CPUs on a platform which doesn't support HSA and they're not going to make another giant die on 28nm bulk or 32nm SOI" is not the same as "zomg AMD is done forever with dCPUs!!!!"

If you go back you can see some things I've speculated on what AMD _could_ do with a new HEDT/workstation platform and why it has the potential to make a ton of sense and profit.

Regardless releasing a new AM3+ CPU with significant silicon changes after this fall is completely foolish.

Not to mention, as I've said before, vishera has already gotten better at things because software has changed. When FX 8350 came out it was a joke because it was getting thrown into benchmarks like Skyrim, Shogun 2, WoW, Starcraft 2, etc.

Now it looks pretty gosh golly good (that one's for you, mods, no swearing) in games like BF4 and AMD didn't do a single thing to the chip. I'd even say that AMD's improvements by changing games have benefited AMD's dCPU product stack more than Intel releasing IB over SB. And guess which was a lot cheaper to do?


----------



## MrJava

Keep in mind that this is a company with resources stretched extremely thin. There have been a lot of layoffs and the company is now leasing its HQ - so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of projects have been affected.

Where AMD's server biz goes, so goes the high-end desktop. And AMD's server strategy is quite murky right now - we have no idea what 2015 will bring. I would be extremely surprised if high-core count server CPUs have been ditched, though.

Here's hoping this is a real product:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Here's hoping this is a real product:
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg


Imagine, that's excavator, 1024 shaders, 8 cores, many DDR3 interfaces. All running within 65 watts and beating steamroller in single core performance with nearly double the multi performance. AMD would be competitive.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Here's hoping this is a real product:
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg


The actual source for that is SA forums: http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=168728&postcount=7

And the image was just made by a member for pure speculation purposes.


----------



## heroxoot

Is anyone else thinking the new socket will aslep be DDR4? I've heard about DDR4 being out in 2014 - 2015. Not that we need it when DDR3 is still incredibly fast.


----------



## Overkill

Wait until you see SERVERS running DDR4 then you can extrapolate when to expect it to be on the consumer market/desktop. Everything always trickles down from servers, every time.


----------



## heroxoot

Can you imagine game servers using DDR4? This stuff is crazy.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg


lol. Im sure we would all love to have that. it looks like 16 integer cores, 8/16 FPUs, octo channel memory, and a huge amount of shader cores. On a 28nm process I would guestimate somewhere around 800mm2 die size? Maybe more? Seems reasonable.







I bet power draw would only be as much as the FX-9000 series too! But seriously, even though it wont be done for at least 4 years I would still buy that thing for $1500-2000 if it were available today.


----------



## MrJava

Why would you assume that this be made on the 28nm process? This maybe straight out of someone's imagination, but it seems like a reasonable concept for chips for Exascale computing in the HPC world.

We already have 8 jaguar + 20 GCN CUs + 256-bit GDDR5 IMC + UNB at about 350mm^2 on TSMC 28.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> lol. Im sure we would all love to have that. it looks like 16 integer cores, 8/16 FPUs, octo channel memory, and a huge amount of shader cores. On a 28nm process I would guestimate somewhere around 800mm2 die size? Maybe more? Seems reasonable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I bet power draw would only be as much as the FX-9000 series too! But seriously, even though it wont be done for at least 4 years I would still buy that thing for $1500-2000 if it were available today.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Why would you assume that this be made on the 28nm process? This maybe straight out of someone's imagination, but it seems like a reasonable concept for chips for Exascale computing in the HPC world.
> 
> We already have 8 jaguar + 20 GCN CUs + 256-bit GDDR5 IMC + UNB at about 350mm^2 on TSMC 28.


Mkay well even going down to 22nm it would still be a large chip. Doesnt really matter what it is made on since it wont happen anytime soon and probably not till desktop chips are made in 14nm size.

Jaguar cores are VERY small compared to Orochi family cores, and these family cores are only getting bigger. If we are hypothetically talking Excavator cores then 16 of them plus FPUs to go with would be quite large on a single die, and it is showing all the l2 and l3 to go with them which is a MASSIVE amount of die space right there (you do realize 8MB of l3 alone for 8 cores takes up half the die space on Vishera right? and we would want at least 12MB to go with 16 cores), then talking not 256-bit of channels but 512-bit memory bus (plus ECC bit width), also huge and lots of pins. Then we have PCI-E links and HTT links both of which are large in die size, probably needing at least two HTT links for multi-CPU communication since we are talking HPC environment here. Then we have all the other IO stuff, and on top of all that we have 1024 GPU cores and the GPU tech. So ya, freakin massive processor...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Overkill*
> 
> Wait until you see SERVERS running DDR4 then you can extrapolate when to expect it to be on the consumer market/desktop. Everything always trickles down from servers, every time.


Brickland would like to have a word with you about ivy-ex.

But yeah brickland will get ddr4 with haswell-ex


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Keep in mind that this is a company with resources stretched extremely thin. There have been a lot of layoffs and the company is now leasing its HQ - so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of projects have been affected.
> 
> Where AMD's server biz goes, so goes the high-end desktop. And AMD's server strategy is quite murky right now - we have no idea what 2015 will bring. I would be extremely surprised if high-core count server CPUs have been ditched, though.
> 
> Here's hoping this is a real product:
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg


The thing is that while resources are spread thin, AMD has already designed the cores and done most of the R&D on Steamroller. If anything making a 4m/8c design would be capitalizing more on what they've made with their lower resources.

I do think that if we saw an SR FX chip released on bulk a lot of people would be very disappointed. It would be like Intel when they release a new chip with better IPC and then turn around and screw up the process so it loses 10% clockspeed overclocked. Intel can get away with it because it has strong enough fanboys to go "wooo the power consumption!!!!"but AMD doesn't have that going for themselves.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/news/2013-05/amd_volcanic_islands_apu_on_steroids.jpg
> 
> 
> 
> lol. Im sure we would all love to have that. it looks like 16 integer cores, 8/16 FPUs, octo channel memory, and a huge amount of shader cores. On a 28nm process I would guestimate somewhere around 800mm2 die size? Maybe more? Seems reasonable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I bet power draw would only be as much as the FX-9000 series too! But seriously, even though it wont be done for at least 4 years I would still buy that thing for $1500-2000 if it were available today.
Click to expand...

800mm^2 would be useless. I think the next chip will be 20nm FD-SOI. 22nm PD-SOI is not happening at GloFo. But an 800mm^2 32nm chip actually ends up close to Vishera die size at 20nm. But to be honest with you I'd rather expect 5m/10c or 6m/12c parts with an iGPU tacked on over a straight up 8m/16c part.

The thing is that AMD releasing a roadmap like that actually does create more demand for their products. Find threads in forums discussing that roadmap and it's full of Intel guys groaning about $300+ i5 5670k and AMD guys saying they might have to go Intel. I don't know if AMD is doing that intentionally or not but *if* AMD releases a 20nm excavator part with more than 4m *and* a 15% IPC increase from SR *and* Intel just releases Broadwell with no IPC increase, AMD is going to completely dominate the gaming CPU market. If they could hit 5m/10c or 6m/10c dCPU at about i5 5670k prices or 5770k prices they'd have an absolute winner of a chip on their hands. Kind of theoretical but a lot of people would jump ship from Intel if that were the case. And that's not the type of move you want to let anyone know is going to happen. Because when it actually does happen, you get an end result like 290x blindsiding Nvidia.


----------



## MrJava

20nm is a full node shrink versus 28nm. I think you're underestimating how much extra you can do with the die area on that new process. I agree, maybe this config a still a ways out on a single die but there are other ways to achieve similar results. How bout 2 dies in MCM?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Mkay well even going down to 22nm it would still be a large chip. Doesnt really matter what it is made on since it wont happen anytime soon and probably not till desktop chips are made in 14nm size.
> 
> Jaguar cores are VERY small compared to Orochi family cores, and these family cores are only getting bigger. If we are hypothetically talking Excavator cores then 16 of them plus FPUs to go with would be quite large on a single die, and it is showing all the l2 and l3 to go with them which is a MASSIVE amount of die space right there (you do realize 8MB of l3 alone for 8 cores takes up half the die space on Vishera right? and we would want at least 12MB to go with 16 cores), then talking not 256-bit of channels but 512-bit memory bus (plus ECC bit width), also huge and lots of pins. Then we have PCI-E links and HTT links both of which are large in die size, probably needing at least two HTT links for multi-CPU communication since we are talking HPC environment here. Then we have all the other IO stuff, and on top of all that we have 1024 GPU cores and the GPU tech. So ya, freakin massive processor...


Cores are only part of the design. You've got a northbridge, L3 cache, HT and PCIe controllers that need to be redesigned and validated. Not a trivial task.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The thing is that while resources are spread thin, AMD has already designed the cores and done most of the R&D on Steamroller. If anything making a 4m/8c design would be capitalizing more on what they've made with their lower resources.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Regardless, I seriously doubt R&D for a big core is justified only for midrange laptops,microservers and entry to entry/mid level desktops. If AMD is forced to abandon big server market aspirations/high end desktop and fail once again to break into midhigh to high end laptops, EX might be the end of the line for big cores in general for them. I seriously doubt this is the case so I am expecting more products with more threads from their side.


----------



## MrJava

I'm not arguing against that. I'm saying it was not possible for AMD to introduce SR Opteron and the new platform (G2012 or GC36 or whatever) at the same time as they were introducing Kaveri/Beema/Mullins given their current engineering resources. That's the only reasonable explanation since whatever chip we were supposed to get this/next year has been in development for at 2-3 years now.

Unfortunately, the window for a 28nm server chip's relevance is 2013 - H1 2014. As Mark Papermaster says "Time is performance". It's likely that they just shifted engineers to the Excavator Opteron if it still exists at this point.

The roadmap we've seen is even more concerning because poor little Beema/Mullins must carry the torch through 2015 apparently.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Regardless, I seriously doubt R&D for a big core is justified only for midrange laptops,microservers and entry to entry/mid level desktops. If AMD is forced to abandon big server market aspirations/high end desktop and fail once again to break into midhigh to high end laptops, EX might be the end of the line for big cores in general for them. I seriously doubt this is the case so I am expecting more products with more threads from their side.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Cores are only part of the design. You've got a northbridge, L3 cache, HT and PCIe controllers that need to be redesigned and validated. Not a trivial task.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The thing is that while resources are spread thin, AMD has already designed the cores and done most of the R&D on Steamroller. If anything making a 4m/8c design would be capitalizing more on what they've made with their lower resources.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the calculations I did were very optimistic but it still would open the door for AMD to release a 400mm^2 or so chip. It would have the potential to be a strong chip at 8m/16c. And with Intel sitting still with increasing performance and AMD getting at least 15% total performance out of each iteration of the bulldozer architecture it would be an extremely strong chip compared to Intel.

At the very least it would make Intel come off of its high horse of charging $1000+ for a roughly 215mm^2 die but AMD would still be pretty behind in die size to performance.

I do definitely think it's safe to say there won't be an SR FX for AM3+ but I'm not ruling out any other high end products either. Kuivamaa makes a very valid point that AMD has set things up so their chips are "building blocks" as Rory or someone important said so it's not that difficult to throw modules on a die and call it good.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> The roadmap we've seen is even more concerning because poor little Beema/Mullins must carry the torch through 2015 apparently.


That's even worse because those are little cores-halting half their big core and completely shutting down their little core lineup makes no sense. I think this roadmap only includes verified stuff and we will see additions later on else they are about to go full ARM or something.


----------



## heroxoot

I'm wondering if AMD has given up on the gaming/enthusiast market and is just going to do APU now. Yet they continue to make great GPU.


----------



## iamwardicus

The gaming / enthusiast market is ultimately a small market though. The main markets are now going into the portable / moble type machine, and also the business class machine. gaming is important yes, especially with how AMD got the ps4 / xb1 but it's still a small market. IMO they aren't giving up on it, they're just putting their eggs into HSA for performance.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iamwardicus*
> 
> The gaming / enthusiast market is ultimately a small market though. The main markets are now going into the portable / moble type machine, and also the business class machine. gaming is important yes, especially with how AMD got the ps4 / xb1 but it's still a small market. IMO they aren't giving up on it, they're just putting their eggs into HSA for performance.


So what you're saying is PC gaming is dead and AMD knows it.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iamwardicus*
> 
> The gaming / enthusiast market is ultimately a small market though. The main markets are now going into the portable / moble type machine, and also the business class machine. gaming is important yes, especially with how AMD got the ps4 / xb1 but it's still a small market. IMO they aren't giving up on it, they're just putting their eggs into HSA for performance.


It's also the only place for AMD big cores that's growing.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/pc-is-the-fastest-growing-gaming-platform-in-the-uk

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/pc-gaming-is-fastest-growing-platform-says-ea-ceo-14165

People keep seeing surveys where someone goes to Dell, HP, etc and checks how many desktops they're shipping, comparing that number to previous years, and then going "ZOMG THE DESKTOP IS DEAD!"

None of the OEMs want Gaming PCs to do well so they're going to do everything they can to make people think they're dead. No one wants to buy gaming PCs from OEMs anymore because they're significantly overpriced and it's very easy to build your own. Conversely OEMs like Dell and HP want you to buy cheap, crappy tablets that you will throw away in a year and then buy a new one. Even laptops are better for OEMs.

The last thing Dell, HP, etc are going to do is show up and say "yeah, gaming PC is the market but no one buys our gaming PCs!"


----------



## MrJava

I have no idea what you're arguing about. There will be no Steamroller based CPU/APU with more than 2 Modules in 2014 - these chips don't just pop up out of nowhere overnight. We'll see what 2015/2016 brings.


----------



## Overkill

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Brickland would like to have a word with you about ivy-ex.
> 
> But yeah brickland will get ddr4 with haswell-ex


AMD doesn't do things the same way as intel.


----------



## heroxoot

So are we going to move into budget APU or are we moving to full desktop CPU with integrated graphic controller, like an i7 with a HD4000? Or just low power APU that cannot compete with a non APU model?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So are we going to move into budget APU or are we moving to full desktop CPU with integrated graphic controller, like an i7 with a HD4000? Or just low power APU that cannot compete with a non APU model?


I have an FX-8350 and there is no urgency to upfrade it right now. I have 2 crossfired 7950's on my Asus Crosshair 5 Formula Zboard, My performance right now is accetable. I will wait until first quarter 2015 to see if AMD releases. info about an 6 or 8 core Excavator-Carrizo APU.


----------



## iamwardicus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So what you're saying is PC gaming is dead and AMD knows it.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> It's also the only place for AMD big cores that's growing.
> 
> http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/pc-is-the-fastest-growing-gaming-platform-in-the-uk
> 
> http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/pc-gaming-is-fastest-growing-platform-says-ea-ceo-14165
> 
> People keep seeing surveys where someone goes to Dell, HP, etc and checks how many desktops they're shipping, comparing that number to previous years, and then going "ZOMG THE DESKTOP IS DEAD!"
> 
> None of the OEMs want Gaming PCs to do well so they're going to do everything they can to make people think they're dead. No one wants to buy gaming PCs from OEMs anymore because they're significantly overpriced and it's very easy to build your own. Conversely OEMs like Dell and HP want you to buy cheap, crappy tablets that you will throw away in a year and then buy a new one. Even laptops are better for OEMs.
> 
> The last thing Dell, HP, etc are going to do is show up and say "yeah, gaming PC is the market but no one buys our gaming PCs!"


I didn't say that PC gaming is dead. I said that AMD is focusing on HSA. To that end they also have Mantle for the gaming side of things. According to all the news we have thus far they have no plans on doing anything beyond a possible Piledriver refresh for the so called "big cores" desktop market. As for their focus on the APU I believe that if HSA is adopted as widely as I believe it will be, in a few years that we won't have to worry so much about the gaming performance as it will just be there. Using the on die GPU for enhanced performance in applications I feel is going to be an excellent way to give the end user what they want - more speed in their games, applications, and general computing experience. No it won't make your webpage load any faster but it will hopefully help all the other things you do move along. We will all have to wait and see how it's adopted by developers as it will ultimately be on them to adopt the new technologies.

My last little string of thoughs from my perspective: AMD has been known to change their roadmaps fairly often. I'm convinced that we won't see anything Steamroller based for AM3+ (which irks me, it's the reason I went out and got a CHV motherboard and the 8350) but we don't know for sure what they've planned for the long term. They could be testing an AM3+ steamroller based chip but not putting it on the roadmap as they're not sure if it'll provide the benefits they want. I doubt it personally, I'm again sure that they are trying to get down to a single unified socket for both their mobile & desktop parts, but we'll all have to just wait and see what happens. It's an exciting and frustrating time for us, but it will pass and hopefully AMD will pull through and give us the product they're known for: A good product for a good price. That's all I'm gonna ask for myself.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So are we going to move into budget APU or are we moving to full desktop CPU with integrated graphic controller, like an i7 with a HD4000? Or just low power APU that cannot compete with a non APU model?
> 
> 
> 
> I have an FX-8350 and there is no urgency to upfrade it right now. I have 2 crossfired 7950's on my Asus Crosshair 5 Formula Zboard, My performance right now is accetable. I will wait until first uarter 2015 to see if AMD releases. info about an 6 or 8 core Excavator-Carrizo APU.
Click to expand...

See I have an 8150 and all I ever hear is how its holding me back. Personally I get 60fps at least in every game on max, so I don't see how its holding me back. I only have a 60hz monitor as I cannot see a difference between 60 and 120hz physically. I don't feel an 8350 is worth the upgrade for performance reasons. Maybe for less power usage and better OC, but otherwise clock for clock the difference isn't even 20%? So I have been waiting for a while now. I'd really hate to go back to intel.


----------



## MrJava

If you wanted the best performance in every application, then maybe you should just spring for an i7 4770K and a Z87 mobo. There are no headaches with such and such application not being optimized.

AMD's current processor design philosophy means that the processors are extremely sensitive to how the software is optimized. Intel's design is to try get max speed in nearly every case with very little compromise, and they never give up performance wrt older instruction sets and software. I think AMD just doesn't have the resources for this kind of approach.

Of course, I can understand if someone objects to buying intel because of their business practices. Still a pretty sleazy company, all things considered.


----------



## miklkit

Huh. I didn't expect to see anyone mention that here. I will never buy another Intel product, and it has nothing to do with their products and everything to do with their management team.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If you wanted the best performance in every application, then maybe you should just spring for an i7 4770K and a Z87 mobo. There are no headaches with such and such application not being optimized.
> 
> AMD's current processor design philosophy means that the processors are extremely sensitive to how the software is optimized. Intel's design is to try get max speed in nearly every case with very little compromise, and they never give up performance wrt older instruction sets and software. I think AMD just doesn't have the resources for this kind of approach.
> 
> Of course, I can understand if someone objects to buying intel because of their business practices. Still a pretty sleazy company, all things considered.


Intel is not my option at this point, you never get the biggest bang for the buck with them. I am hoping as AMD profitability continues to improve that they can beef up their development team so that projects like a 6 to 8 core performance apu can be integrated into their planning and development.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> If you wanted the best performance in every application, then maybe you should just spring for an i7 4770K and a Z87 mobo. There are no headaches with such and such application not being optimized.
> 
> AMD's current processor design philosophy means that the processors are extremely sensitive to how the software is optimized. Intel's design is to try get max speed in nearly every case with very little compromise, and they never give up performance wrt older instruction sets and software. I think AMD just doesn't have the resources for this kind of approach.
> 
> Of course, I can understand if someone objects to buying intel because of their business practices. Still a pretty sleazy company, all things considered.


I'd say that it has more to do with Intel being the creator of x86 and having the majority of market share. You usually optimize your software for the majority.

Intel is better at running legacy code (like stuff that has compatibility that only extends to i686). If anything I'd say that Intel is better at pre-SSE and early SSE stuff and AMD Is better at newer stuff. You can see this very clearly in a program like Skyrim or SuperPI.

Unfortunately getting people to optimize for newer stuff is a lot more difficult Giving a CPU instructions that it doesn't have means the program doesn't work. Not using instructions on a newer chip just means a performance hit.

I am not buying the HSA APU only thing, so can we drop it? In case you haven't noticed, AMD had to make some major changes. They kind of switched to plan B with Steamroller and only released half of what they normally would. I'd put more emphases on AMD's current roadmaps on that as opposed to some pipe-dream where HSA will take over because it makes JPEG decoding twice as fast as a 2m/4c Steamroller chip, because hey, a 4m/8c SR chip would have still been twice as fast.

HSA and APU is AMD polishing a complete failure to get products out and they're polishing it very well. Instead of the internet going "AMD Is doomed they had to cancel SR FX and they had to switch to SteamrollerB and cancel SteamrollerA!" you have people talking about how HSA is the future and APUs are great.

EDIT: I asked this question elsewhere to those who think AMD is going APU only because desktop is dying. If dCPU isn't going to be viable because desktop is dying, that means dGPU is not going to be viable either. Just food for thought before you get ready to go on about how mobile is taking over and APU is all we need.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I'd say that it has more to do with Intel being the creator of x86 and having the majority of market share. You usually optimize your software for the majority.
> 
> Intel is better at running legacy code (like stuff that has compatibility that only extends to i686). If anything I'd say that Intel is better at pre-SSE and early SSE stuff and AMD Is better at newer stuff. You can see this very clearly in a program like Skyrim or SuperPI.


This is pretty ignorant of reality. Sure, there's a market share advantage but I'd say intel's microarchitecture is far ahead of AMD's at this point - optimized binaries or not. It makes sense, given the larger design teams and steady evolutionary progress that has been made on the Core uarch vs. the bloody chaotic revolution that was Bulldozer.

From what I know, the SR core is really not enough of an improvement to take Haswell head on in the server/high-end desktop market unless AMD wants to release new chips at cutthroat prices. They may as well play to their strengths for now by releasing APUs and pushing their ecosystem.

I'm sorry that you'll be having a hard time defending yourself from intel fanbois for the next year or so, but hang in there.








Personally, I'm thinking of picking up the new A10 and a decent mobo to play around with.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> This is pretty ignorant of reality. Sure, there's a market share advantage but I'd say intel's microarchitecture is far ahead of AMD's at this point - optimized binaries or not. It makes sense, given the larger design teams and steady evolutionary progress that has been made on the Core uarch vs. the bloody chaotic revolution that was Bulldozer.
> 
> From what I know, the SR core is really not enough of an improvement to take Haswell head on in the server/high-end desktop market unless AMD wants to release new chips at cutthroat prices. They may as well play to their strengths for now by releasing APUs and pushing their ecosystem.
> 
> I'm sorry that you'll be having a hard time defending yourself from intel fanbois for the next year or so, but hang in there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Personally, I'm thinking of picking up the new A10 and a decent mobo to play around with.


I just got the 6800k with the MSI FM2 A85XA - G65 motherboard, the thing will run 5.1 ghz leaving everything in auto in bios ( the motherboard is really good btw), but even then the performance is a little disappointing.
I ran 3d06 using the onboard graphics and it struggles to beat my 180 opteron with a really good 9800GT. Maybe my expectations were a little off, but I was hoping for something along the lines of what a 5770 would give with dual core pushing it.
The A-10 is a different beast to overclock and I have a lot to learn, so scores will get better. I'm thinking It will end up being my htpc in the bedroom or if I get ambitious a carputer for my F-150


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I'd say that it has more to do with Intel being the creator of x86 and having the majority of market share. You usually optimize your software for the majority.
> 
> Intel is better at running legacy code (like stuff that has compatibility that only extends to i686). If anything I'd say that Intel is better at pre-SSE and early SSE stuff and AMD Is better at newer stuff. You can see this very clearly in a program like Skyrim or SuperPI.
> 
> 
> 
> This is pretty ignorant of reality. Sure, there's a market share advantage but I'd say intel's microarchitecture is far ahead of AMD's at this point - optimized binaries or not. It makes sense, given the larger design teams and steady evolutionary progress that has been made on the Core uarch vs. the bloody chaotic revolution that was Bulldozer.
> 
> From what I know, the SR core is really not enough of an improvement to take Haswell head on in the server/high-end desktop market unless AMD wants to release new chips at cutthroat prices. They may as well play to their strengths for now by releasing APUs and pushing their ecosystem.
> 
> I'm sorry that you'll be having a hard time defending yourself from intel fanbois for the next year or so, but hang in there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Personally, I'm thinking of picking up the new A10 and a decent mobo to play around with.
Click to expand...

I am pretty biased against Windows after running Gentoo on my FX.

However I think it is why AMD focuses on newer instructions and different ideas. I am in agreement with you, but if AMD were to compete directly at running old code in single thread and then solved multi-thread by just copy pasting cores, they would never have a chance of winning.

I do think SR could actually be somewhat competitive with Intel in PC gaming given how BF4 looks. Also, take a look at this: http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-benchmark-mp-cpu-gpu-w7-vs-w8-1/11/

BF4 is actually doing worse on Haswell _with_ hyperthreading some of the time. a 4m/8c SR wouldn't be effective against haswell but a 5m or 6c part would provided games like BF4 scale properly that far (which is sketchy, I will admit). What a big dCPU SR needs is a die shrink with more modules on it and it's not going to be effective to release it no matter how you cut it on 32nm, or probably 28nm even. And by that time it'll already be close to excavator. I'd expect AMD to make a move with that as opposed to SR, it's not enough right now and there's not a good enough node for AMD.

AMD has an opportunity with Broadwell being nothing but a GPU upgrade and a die shrink. We might see 3% performance gain or so because of improved turbo but that's it.

The thing is that gaming PC is the market to be in if you're still going to do desktop. All AMD needs to do to get a winner CPU with the DIY market is to win gaming benchmarks. And low and behold they have almost the entire console gaming industry developing for an APU that shares bulldozer design's weaknesses (primarily many weak cores).

I think it will be fine for the next year. I know how to deal with those types of people.


----------



## heroxoot

AMD is about the future. No one is ever going to use new methods though because intel makes it all run great on a single core. Maybe we really don't need more than 4cores still? But having 8 cores does a lot for me personally. And I know hyperthreading logical cores do not compare to a real core.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> AMD is about the future. No one is ever going to use new methods though because intel makes it all run great on a single core. Maybe we really don't need more than 4cores still? But having 8 cores does a lot for me personally. And I know hyperthreading logical cores do not compare to a real core.


Well AMD's single threaded performance is behind enough that it often takes 8 BD/PD cores to match the throughput of 4 of Intel's cores. This is all fine and dandy in the server and HPC world (which BD was designed for), but its obviously not so good on the desktop.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> ... or if I get ambitious a carputer for my F-150


AMD is quite bullish on the embedded segment right now. Maybe we'll see Kaveri in the dashboard straight from the dealer soon.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> AMD is quite bullish on the embedded segment right now. Maybe we'll see Kaveri in the dashboard straight from the dealer soon.


I would sure like to see that, in the mean time a reasonably priced 15-17 inch touch screen monitor would be helpful, know of any?


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> I would sure like to see that, in the mean time a reasonably priced 15-17 inch touch screen monitor would be helpful, know of any?


i've never seen one of those priced in the realm of reasonably, 15-17inch would be a bit large no?

you could likely fit a wide 12 in dash if you are crafty


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> i've never seen one of those priced in the realm of reasonably, 15-17inch would be a bit large no?
> 
> you could likely fit a wide 12 in dash if you are crafty


I'm thinking ( or more accruately , dreaming ) of mounting it onto a rail , with a swingarm that will allow it to slide to the front of my center console ( floor shift automatic truck) and swivel, or to the back where it could swing to a position in front of either back seat passenger. Yes , it would be a bit large







.


----------



## nitrubbb

is cooler master G450M (450W) psu enough for kaveri + r7 260x


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> is cooler master G450M (450W) psu enough for kaveri + r7 260x


Yes


----------



## yrettete

How will the CPU part of the APU perform ?

What igpu is on the APU ? What is the nvidia equivalent ?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> How will the CPU part of the APU perform ?
> 
> What igpu is on the APU ? What is the nvidia equivalent ?


For Kaveri I suppose?
It should be hd7750 DDR3 equiv as for CPU perf we are thinking 30% clock for clock over piledriver cores so if those go up all the way to 5GHz it would be nearly as fast as an max OC'ed Sandy I5.

Nvidia's equivalent is a though question as Mantle is right around the corner so I guess 650Ti would be Nvidia's equivalent.


----------



## yrettete

so basically an i5

and a gtx 650 on one chip ?

sounds like a good deal to me.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> so basically an i5
> 
> and a gtx 650 on one chip ?
> sounds like a good deal to me.


One thing also that the igp also adds over Nido a because it's a radeon GPU is open cl


----------



## NaroonGTX

That is the rough estimates we've gotten, yeah. It's remarkable how AMD has been able to keep such a tight lid on this chip's performance for so long. We won't get any new (official) info until CES 2014 in January.


----------



## yawa

Yeah I really can't get over how little we still know about the CPU portion of this thing. I mean you'd figure by now some reckless owner would have run a few synthetics and leaked them out to us. Ugh. I just wanna know what it'll actually do.

The waiting is killing me.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> One thing also that the igp also adds over Nido a because it's a radeon GPU is open cl


What ??


----------



## MrJava

Alleged Kaveri Pre-order prices

A10-7700K: $167
A10-7850K: $189

Either AMD has good confidence in these parts or they're pricing themselves out of the market.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What ??


the igpu supports open compute language, or open cl.

making it way more effective as a compute unit workkng with your cpu if you had a dGPU


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Alleged Kaveri Pre-order prices
> 
> A10-7700K: $167
> A10-7850K: $189
> 
> Either AMD has good confidence in these parts or they're pricing themselves out of the market.


Unless the benchies for these things are a WHOLE lot better than we think theyre gonna be.

Preliminary pricing is always a little high. I figure itll settle down around $130 and $150 when they finally come out then drop down from there.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Unless the benchies for these things are a WHOLE lot better than we think theyre gonna be.
> 
> Preliminary pricing is always a little high. I figure itll settle down around $130 and $150 when they finally come out then drop down from there.


For comparison, pre-order price for the 5800K was ~ $130.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/2012090301_Pre-order_prices_of_AMD_Trinity_CPUs.html

Edit:
But yes, I'll wait for the inevitable price cut.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Either these chips will perform much better than we originally thought, or AMD is just trolling in full force. I'd still buy one (or two), but these prices seem a bit ridiculous. I remember reading a week ago that an AMD rep was hinting at prices around the $150 range, but who knows...


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Either these chips will perform much better than we originally thought, or AMD is just trolling in full force. I'd still buy one (or two), but these prices seem a bit ridiculous. I remember reading a week ago that an AMD rep was hinting at prices around the $150 range, but who knows...


Is this worth buying over the marginally more expensive i5-4430 or i5-4570? Hmmm, I don't know.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I guess it would depend on various factors (what platform you're currently on, what you wish to do with said chip, etc.) but for the average consumer (i.e. non-enthusiasts and DIY'ers) these are priced very oddly. If the prices are true, it reminds me of Zambezi's launch prices. How the 8150 was priced against the i7-2600k despite not being very competitive in many scenarios. I remember they even had the FX-6100 costing a little more than the flagship Thuban at the time, where ironically the Thuban outperformed it in almost every way.


----------



## MrJava

Wasn't that still Dirk Meyer's AMD?








Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I guess it would depend on various factors (what platform you're currently on, what you wish to do with said chip, etc.) but for the average consumer (i.e. non-enthusiasts and DIY'ers) these are priced very oddly. If the prices are true, it reminds me of Zambezi's launch prices. How the 8150 was priced against the i7-2600k despite not being very competitive in many scenarios. I remember they even had the FX-6100 costing a little more than the flagship Thuban at the time, where ironically the Thuban outperformed it in almost every way.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Haha yep, I believe that was before he was ousted. I can safely say that I don't miss that era of AMD.


----------



## MacLeod

Forgive me if this is a completely idiotic question but what are the odds these things outperform the current crop of FX chips? We all agree it's a little odd AMD roadmaps show Piledriver riding out til 2015 with a lifespan of nearly 3 years which is unheard of so maybe this explains it.

Is it possible they cranked out better performance out of these Steamroller quad core APU's than the Piledriver 8 core FX can manage? Wouldn't have to be a ton. If they performed 5-10% better with these power consumption numbers we're hearing, that could be good enough to just scrap the 8 core versions that get so much flack for power consumption, heat and all that jazz. The prices they're releasing are almost identical to what the 8350 and 8320 is selling for.

Again, I don't have much expertise in CPU's other than just dropping them in my motherboard and overclocking them so this may be totally stupid but from a layman's point of view, it's entirely possible and would explain all the weird roadmaps we've seen. I'd buy one. Give me a Kaveri APU that performs better than a 8350 and I'll buy a FM2 mobo and switch.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Alleged Kaveri Pre-order prices
> 
> A10-7700K: $167
> A10-7850K: $189
> 
> Either AMD has good confidence in these parts or they're pricing themselves out of the market.


You should know pre-order prices are not controlled by AMD and typicallyvrun $25 to $30 more than once generally available. You never heard of supply and demand?
The exact same phenomena happened with Bulldozer and Piledriver. Cool it!


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Forgive me if this is a completely idiotic question but what are the odds these things outperform the current crop of FX chips? We all agree it's a little odd AMD roadmaps show Piledriver riding out til 2015 with a lifespan of nearly 3 years which is unheard of so maybe this explains it.
> 
> Is it possible they cranked out better performance out of these Steamroller quad core APU's than the Piledriver 8 core FX can manage? Wouldn't have to be a ton. If they performed 5-10% better with these power consumption numbers we're hearing, that could be good enough to just scrap the 8 core versions that get so much flack for power consumption, heat and all that jazz. The prices they're releasing are almost identical to what the 8350 and 8320 is selling for.
> 
> Again, I don't have much expertise in CPU's other than just dropping them in my motherboard and overclocking them so this may be totally stupid but from a layman's point of view, it's entirely possible and would explain all the weird roadmaps we've seen. I'd buy one. Give me a Kaveri APU that performs better than a 8350 and I'll buy a FM2 mobo and switch.


Your pipe dreaming. Not going to happen. Kaveri will be slightly slower than an I-5 2500. Excavator-Carrizo 4 core will be slightly slower than I5-4670. The only way they beat an
FX-8350 is in single thread performance. No way do they come close to multithreaded performance. That would take a 6 or 8 core Carrizo which we are unsure will come to market.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Forgive me if this is a completely idiotic question but what are the odds these things outperform the current crop of FX chips? We all agree it's a little odd AMD roadmaps show Piledriver riding out til 2015 with a lifespan of nearly 3 years which is unheard of so maybe this explains it.
> 
> Is it possible they cranked out better performance out of these Steamroller quad core APU's than the Piledriver 8 core FX can manage? Wouldn't have to be a ton. If they performed 5-10% better with these power consumption numbers we're hearing, that could be good enough to just scrap the 8 core versions that get so much flack for power consumption, heat and all that jazz. The prices they're releasing are almost identical to what the 8350 and 8320 is selling for.
> 
> Again, I don't have much expertise in CPU's other than just dropping them in my motherboard and overclocking them so this may be totally stupid but from a layman's point of view, it's entirely possible and would explain all the weird roadmaps we've seen. I'd buy one. Give me a Kaveri APU that performs better than a 8350 and I'll buy a FM2 mobo and switch.


Not a chance according to early results with AMD's ES samples but if these chips are magical clockers then budget enthusiasts will jump them for sure.
I think the Steambox variant with this APU should sell well but I also think a chip as in the PS4 with 8 jaguar cores and a ~7790 will also do great in a steambox.


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Your pipe dreaming. Not going to happen. Kaveri will be slightly slower than an I-5 2500. Excavator-Carrizo 4 core will be slightly slower than I5-4670. The only way they beat an
> FX-8350 is in single thread performance. No way do they come close to multithreaded performance. That would take a 6 or 8 core Carrizo which we are unsure will come to market.


I figured it was a long shot. I was just thinking that with the rumored 30% improvement in IPC and half the power consumption that that would push it passed an 8350 in all but the most heavily threaded applications that would take advantage of 8 cores which ain't many.

I thought that if a quad core i5 outperforms a 8350 in a lot of things why not a quad core Kaveri? If a Kaveri APU could outperform a 6300 in threaded apps and beat a 8300 in everything else, it might be worth it for gamers like me and others who don't necessarily need 8 cores over IPC.

Like you said tho, wishful thinking cause I just really want there to be something I can upgrade to in the new AMD lineup.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Again, I don't have much expertise in CPU's other than just dropping them in my motherboard and overclocking them so this may be totally stupid but from a layman's point of view, it's entirely possible and would explain all the weird roadmaps we've seen. I'd buy one. Give me a Kaveri APU that performs better than a 8350 and I'll buy a FM2 mobo and switch.


Well think about it this way: If more games become heavily threaded in the future then you might not have a reason to upgrade. If most games stay single or lightly threaded like they are now, then Kaveri is a better option.


----------



## MacLeod

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Well think about it this way: If more games become heavily threaded in the future then you might not have a reason to upgrade. If most games stay single or lightly threaded like they are now, then Kaveri is a better option.


True. And with AMD 8 core chips in the X-bone and PS4 now, it does stand to reason that games will be more threaded since developers will be building their games to work on that AMD architecture. But the thing that keeps bugging me tho is if that's the case, why is AMD seemingly abandoning the 8 cores segment at least til 2015? They put 8-core chips in the consoles then dump the 8-core chips for the desktop?

Like I said, there is a lot that doesn't make sense in what AMD is doing right now at least judging by what little they've shown so far in roadmaps and such.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> True. And with AMD 8 core chips in the X-bone and PS4 now, it does stand to reason that games will be more threaded since developers will be building their games to work on that AMD architecture. But the thing that keeps bugging me tho is if that's the case, why is AMD seemingly abandoning the 8 cores segment at least til 2015? They put 8-core chips in the consoles then dump the 8-core chips for the desktop?
> 
> Like I said, there is a lot that doesn't make sense in what AMD is doing right now at least judging by what little they've shown so far in roadmaps and such.


Because the big Opteron was either not ready for 2014 or was cancelled. I think they weighed the options with Kaveri to have an extra module and decided not to because that same chip is going into laptops. For a midrange laptop part it is better to have 4 high-clocked cores vs. 6 lower-clocked ones. Just look at the intel mobile lineup, nearly all of the parts are 2 core/2 thread or 2 core/4 thread.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> True. And with AMD 8 core chips in the X-bone and PS4 now, it does stand to reason that games will be more threaded since developers will be building their games to work on that AMD architecture. But the thing that keeps bugging me tho is if that's the case, why is AMD seemingly abandoning the 8 cores segment at least til 2015? They put 8-core chips in the consoles then dump the 8-core chips for the desktop?
> 
> Like I said, there is a lot that doesn't make sense in what AMD is doing right now at least judging by what little they've shown so far in roadmaps and such.
> 
> 
> 
> Because the big Opteron was either not ready for 2014 or was cancelled. I think they weighed the options with Kaveri to have an extra module and decided not to because that same chip is going into laptops. For a midrange laptop part it is better to have 4 high-clocked cores vs. 6 lower-clocked ones. Just look at the intel mobile lineup, nearly all of the parts are 2 core/2 thread or 2 core/4 thread.
Click to expand...

They are giving it a test probably. See where it goes and make a desktop CPU that murders it in benchmarks.

I really wanted a steamroller in my PC though. From everything I had read it would have been 50% improvement over my 8150. Might snag an 8350 if I find a sale, since I don't want to wait till 2015.


----------



## yrettete

Are they releasing anything better than the a10 7850k ?

Secondly, how much life does the fm2+ socket have in it ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Are they releasing anything better than the a10 7850k ?
> 
> Secondly, how much life does the fm2+ socket have in it ?


dont quote me on it but I think that the 7850k is the flagship.. As far as the life it is debatable, they are pushing for a unified socket.. they may keep it to excavator, or change it for excavator.. If DDR4 is introduced soon to the server market on AMD side then I can see a new socket being FM3


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Because the big Opteron was either not ready for 2014 or was cancelled. I think they weighed the options with Kaveri to have an extra module and decided not to because that same chip is going into laptops. For a midrange laptop part it is better to have 4 high-clocked cores vs. 6 lower-clocked ones. Just look at the intel mobile lineup, nearly all of the parts are 2 core/2 thread or 2 core/4 thread.


Our corporate laptops have I5 M520's - gimped with mismatched ram and a 32 bit operating system. They are the most exasperatingly slow and buggy machines I've ran in the last 5 years







.

My personal laptop on the other hand has the I7 3610 with a 7850m for graphics and it's a wonderful machine.
The apu equipped laptop my daughter has is also a very good rig and has fairly decent battery life .
It runs rings around my business laptop.

For those looking for an upgrade in the AM3+ socket, the 9370 is now $219 at the egg, and comes with a CLC cooler. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113352


----------



## yrettete

Does "flagship" mean the best product ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Does "flagship" mean the best product ?


means the top of the generation that they are producing. same thing could have been said about the 8350 and now the 9590.. (in short the top of the class for the product being offered by a company)


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> Our corporate laptops have I5 M520's - gimped with mismatched ram and a 32 bit operating system. They are the most exasperatingly slow and buggy machines I've ran in the last 5 years
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> 
> My personal laptop on the other hand has the I7 3610 with a 7850m for graphics and it's a wonderful machine.
> The apu equipped laptop my daughter has is also a very good rig and has fairly decent battery life .
> It runs rings around my business laptop.
> 
> For those looking for an upgrade in the AM3+ socket, the 9370 is now $219 at the egg, and comes with a CLC cooler. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113352


Without the cooler you can snag it for $199.99 also at Newegg. I already have a Swiftech H320 cooler which is far better than what they bundle with the cpu. I am really tempted, but I laid out some serious cash for a memory upgrade for my computer plus a 256 GB ssd to upgrade my nephew's machine.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Are they releasing anything better than the a10 7850k ?
> 
> Secondly, how much life does the fm2+ socket have in it ?


Nope, the flagship is the 7850k.

FM2+ will get Kaveri and later in Q1 2015 it'll get Carrizo.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> For those looking for an upgrade in the AM3+ socket, the 9370 is now $219 at the egg, and comes with a CLC cooler. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113352


$219 with the cooler is a nice price, that's where it belongs. What I really want to know though is what happens when it's placed in a board that doesn't have official support for it? Only the 990fx chipset received bios updates even though my 890fx board is surely capable.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Nope, the flagship is the 7850k.
> 
> FM2+ will get Kaveri and later in Q1 2015 it'll get Carrizo.


Only if you believe the dubious roadmap posted here earlier this week. I have trouble accepting that in 2015 .28m process is the best that will be available If so If I were AMD I would have made a deal with IBM to use their .22nm HP process.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Well I didn't say anything about what process lithography Kaveri would be on. There's no correlation between process node and socket. I only said Carrizo is heading to FM2+ which all rumors so far have been suggesting for some time now.


----------



## yrettete

What is holding back Excavator ?

They should release it sooner.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Well I didn't say anything about what process lithography Kaveri would be on. There's no correlation between process node and socket. I only said Carrizo is heading to FM2+ which all rumors so far have been suggesting for some time now.


My point is the node on that bogus roadmap is listed as .28nm for Carrizo. I do not believe excavator cores will be on .28nm. Therefore the whole roadmap loses credibilty in my eyes.


----------



## NaroonGTX

If they release Carrizo sooner, it would cannibalize the sales and profits from Kaveri, for one.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What is holding back Excavator ?
> 
> They should release it sooner.


Do you know anything about processor release cycles? Evidently not. Kaveri is released in January, 2014. Excavator is scheduled for 1 year later in 1st quarter. That is one year. Tell me when Intel or AMD has moved from one generation cpu to another in less than a year? The answer is never. Please think before you make yourself look foolish.


----------



## Papadope

When was the last time AMD changed nodes in 1 year?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> When was the last time AMD changed nodes in 1 year?


Never, they tend to also use the architecture twice. With the second version having more Instruction Set Extensions or having flaws fixed by then.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What is holding back Excavator ?
> 
> They should release it sooner.
> 
> 
> 
> Do you know anything about processor release cycles? Evidently not. Kaveri is released in January, 2014. Excavator is scheduled for 1 year later in 1st quarter. That is one year. Tell me when Intel or AMD has moved from one generation cpu to another in less than a year? The answer is never. Please think before you make yourself look foolish.
Click to expand...

Never but it feels like we have gone years without a new generation for desktops. I don't consider the APU the same. I really just want a new 8 core for my desktop is all but AMD seemingly has left all those to die.

It does however give me reason to buy a new motherboard........in 2015.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Never, they tend to also use the architecture twice. With the second version having more Instruction Set Extensions or having flaws fixed by then.


If what you are saying is that Carrizo is a minor improvement over Kaveri with mainly istruction set improvements then it would not require a year to do that and then Carrizo is NOT excavator and Carrizo should be coming later in 2014. By that logic Excavator would come later in 2015 on .20nm process. That would also negate the legitimacy of the bogus roadmap uploaded here last week.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Never, they tend to also use the architecture twice. With the second version having more Instruction Set Extensions or having flaws fixed by then.


Exactly, there has been 3 generations of APU's all on 32nm already. I'm starting to believe Carrizo is only going to be 2 modules on 28nm. It looks like 2016 is going to be AMD's year where everything lines up. Return to the server market, return to the enthusiast market, unified consumer desktop socket, dGPU HSA.

If we just look at AMD's big problems in the server market most will be fixed by the time Carrizo is released. They would just be waiting on DDR4 availability.
Reduced Multithread performance -> Fixed Steamroller
Low IPC -> 20% Estimated Increase Steamroller, more than likely enhanced further by Excavator
Low Clocks due to TDP -> Drastically reduced TDP by Excavator
High Power Consumption - > Reduced by excavator and 20nm
G34 dated platform -> 2016 New Platform with DDR4
Could also feature Excavator core successor

I think were just going to keep seeing the prices on the FX-9370 and FX-9590 decreasing for people who need more power than the APU's. Marketing will keep pushing the 8 Cores! and 5GHZ! and websites will keep posting benchmarks showing threaded games like this. Just look how good the FX-9370 looks here for it's current price of $199.


Remember what Roy Taylor said about the future of big cores?
Quote:


> I'm going to frustrate everyone by pleading the tech industry equivalent of the fifth, meaning that we can't comment on unannounced products. What I can, however, say is this: I'm a gamer and in many ways the [FX-9590] is my baby. I wanted to do that and I pushed very hard internally for that. It's a great success. I did that because I love what we're doing there.


At that time I was expecting Steamroller on AM3+ and I thought, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? Now it makes sense.


----------



## heroxoot

That chart is actually pretty spot on. Though I see FPS as low as 40 in BF4 on my 8150. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> That chart is actually pretty spot on. Though I see FPS as low as 40 in BF4 on my 8150. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.


Well, my Matrix [email protected] Core/6680Mem + [email protected] had dips into 45 at BF4 Ultra everything 4XMSAA.


----------



## yrettete

What's stopping Intel making an apu and putting something like a gtx 660 in a cpu.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What's stopping Intel making an apu and putting something like a gtx 660 in a cpu.


Because Intel does not own nVidia? Thats why they have a low HD series for their CPU. I mean to be fair its hell of a lot better than they used to be. I remember having a netbook with a atom and a 965 IGP. It could run CS:S @ 30fps sometimes.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *X-Alt*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> That chart is actually pretty spot on. Though I see FPS as low as 40 in BF4 on my 8150. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> Well, my Matrix [email protected] Core/6680Mem + [email protected] had dips into 45 at BF4 Ultra everything 4XMSAA.
Click to expand...

I turned off MSAA and used FXAA injection with radeon pro, though I'm not certain its working because dynamic Vsync doesn't seem to work either. My FPS can go up around 100 but I have it capped to 60.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Because Intel does not own nVidia? Thats why they have a low HD series for their CPU. I mean to be fair its hell of a lot better than they used to be. I remember having a netbook with a atom and a 965 IGP. It could run CS:S @ 30fps sometimes.
> I turned off MSAA and used FXAA injection with radeon pro, though I'm not certain its working because dynamic Vsync doesn't seem to work either. My FPS can go up around 100 but I have it capped to 60.


Force it in BF4..


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *X-Alt*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Because Intel does not own nVidia? Thats why they have a low HD series for their CPU. I mean to be fair its hell of a lot better than they used to be. I remember having a netbook with a atom and a 965 IGP. It could run CS:S @ 30fps sometimes.
> I turned off MSAA and used FXAA injection with radeon pro, though I'm not certain its working because dynamic Vsync doesn't seem to work either. My FPS can go up around 100 but I have it capped to 60.
> 
> 
> 
> Force it in BF4..
Click to expand...

Care to explain? I don't want to derail this thread. I just am curious because I've been told already my 8150 is a bottleneck to BF4, but if I get 60fps on average I don't see it being such.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Care to explain? I don't want to derail this thread. I just am curious because I've been told already my 8150 is a bottleneck to BF4, but if I get 60fps on average I don't see it being such.


Bottleneck when? 64 player servers?


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Care to explain? I don't want to derail this thread. I just am curious because I've been told already my 8150 is a bottleneck to BF4, but if I get 60fps on average I don't see it being such.
> 
> 
> 
> Bottleneck when? 64 player servers?
Click to expand...

Well I get fps drops to 40 like I said but even on the new china rising maps I can see 60fps across the vast desert map doing 64 player rush. Depends on how much action is going on. Honestly it has to be a lot before I get any unplayable dips. So far it has never happened.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Well I get fps drops to 40 like I said but even on the new china rising maps I can see 60fps across the vast desert map doing 64 player rush. Depends on how much action is going on. Honestly it has to be a lot before I get any unplayable dips. So far it has never happened.


Its normal tho, the 8150 is no bottleneck, those 8 cores are being put to good use.. Your 7970 Lightning + 8150 is in the same region as my 8320 + Matrix 7970-P. Unless you push the CPU reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealy hard.


----------



## yrettete

If the cpu performance of the a10 7850k is an i5 2500k

then Kaveri is quite disappointing


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> If the cpu performance of the a10 7850k is an i5 2500k
> 
> then Kaveri is quite disappointing


For a $150 7750-ish performance GPU and a Steamroller CPU with no L3, then it is quite good..........................


----------



## feedgotones

the more people will start looking at Ivy Bridge-E Q4 2013 and then Haswell-E Q1 2015 which are going to be huge since they're going to be using solder TIM.thank you


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> If the cpu performance of the a10 7850k is an i5 2500k
> 
> then Kaveri is quite disappointing


If you expect AMD to make a magical 50%+ boost in IPC, you're insane.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> If the cpu performance of the a10 7850k is an i5 2500k
> 
> then Kaveri is quite disappointing


The potential of HSA should also be considered together with its graphics potential.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> If you expect AMD to make a magical 50%+ boost in IPC, you're insane.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The potetial of HSA should also be considered together with its graphics potential.


To add Haswell is only 10 to 15% better than sandybridge.. so even compared to a 2500k is quite good


----------



## yrettete

Can't they just slap a 7750 on an 8350 ?


----------



## NaroonGTX

They could in theory, but the die size would be even more massive than it already is, not to mention the heat such a chip would generate. I also couldn't imagine someone buying a chip like that (it would be somewhere beyond $200 in price) and being satisfied with the GPU performance. It would be like someone buying a 4770k and not ever buying a decent dGPU to go with it.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Can't they just slap a 7750 on an 8350 ?


I imagine the actual CPU would be bigger than it already is. I don't mean the die I mean the whole physical thing would probably need to be a bit bigger.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I imagine the actual CPU would be bigger than it already is. I don't mean the die I mean the whole physical thing would probably need to be a bit bigger.


Which would require a socket change meaning new motherboard and so on..


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I imagine the actual CPU would be bigger than it already is. I don't mean the die I mean the whole physical thing would probably need to be a bit bigger.
> 
> 
> 
> Which would require a socket change meaning new motherboard and so on..
Click to expand...

And when this happens I just hope AMD gives us PCIE3.0. They said it wasn't going to happen in the past but what with the 290x, it has to happen now.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> And when this happens I just hope AMD gives us PCIE3.0. They said it wasn't going to happen in the past but what with the 290x, it has to happen now.


Fm2+ offers it now.. that is the socket line they are continuing with


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> And when this happens I just hope AMD gives us PCIE3.0. They said it wasn't going to happen in the past but what with the 290x, it has to happen now.


Already has with Kaveri and richland (I think).


----------



## heroxoot

That doesn't help much though. Unless the new APU out bench my 8150, which I don't think they currently can with only 4 cores? And even with 8 its not going to be as powerful right?


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> That doesn't help much though. Unless the new APU out bench my 8150, which I don't think they currently can with only 4 cores? And even with 8 its not going to be as powerful right?


With 6 or 8 cores, it will CRUSH your 8150. The latter's L3 can only do so much...


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> That doesn't help much though. Unless the new APU out bench my 8150, which I don't think they currently can with only 4 cores? And even with 8 its not going to be as powerful right?


Single threaded will crush your 8150..

If only 6 threads are being utilized then they most likely be the same fully loaded with threads 8150 beats out...

That is without factoring in hsa.. Although this is not concrete because we don't have full bench yet.. but from what we have seen it is educated


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> If what you are saying is that Carrizo is a minor improvement over Kaveri with mainly istruction set improvements then it would not require a year to do that and then Carrizo is NOT excavator and Carrizo should be coming later in 2014. By that logic Excavator would come later in 2015 on .20nm process. That would also negate the legitimacy of the bogus roadmap uploaded here last week.


Orochi Rev B: AVX/XOP/FMA4
Orochi Rev C/Trinity Rev A/Richland Rev A: F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4
Kaveri Rev A/Rev B?: FGSGBase/XSAVEOPT+F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4
Carrizo Rev A/etc: AVX2/MOVBE/BMI2/RDRND+FGSGBase/XSAVEOPT+F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4

Kaveri: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO
Carrizo: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO

Look at all these patents!


----------



## heroxoot

Are we talking the newest APU? Because I've been looking at benchmarks on and off and the performance does not seem that good, unless its with the GPU portion disabled causing CPU performance increase? Single threading performance doesn't bother me much when majority of what I do will use 4+ cores.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> True. And with AMD 8 core chips in the X-bone and PS4 now, it does stand to reason that games will be more threaded since developers will be building their games to work on that AMD architecture. But the thing that keeps bugging me tho is if that's the case, why is AMD seemingly abandoning the 8 cores segment at least til 2015? They put 8-core chips in the consoles then dump the 8-core chips for the desktop?
> 
> Like I said, there is a lot that doesn't make sense in what AMD is doing right now at least judging by what little they've shown so far in roadmaps and such.


AMD will continue to sell the Vishera processors which go up to 8 cores. The Jaguar cores in the consoles are fairly weak cores so I am pretty sure a Vishera 8 core will absolutely destroy a Jaguar core, and then the console cores are only 1.6GHz too so not only a more powerful core but also a big speed advantage. An FX-8350 will be able to do just as well with the CPU side of things on a PC game ported from console if both platforms make full and proper use of 8 cores.

Go look at benchmarks of Bobcat core processors, like the E-350 or E-450. Jaguar is supposed to be 15% faster clock for clock, then also have up to a 10% speed advantage on top. Of course you can only look at single threaded benchmarks for these comparisons because the Bobcat processors only have 2 cores and the custom Jaguar's have 8 cores. Anyway, after looking at that go compare those to performance of any desktop grade processor you want and see how they come up.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Are we talking the newest APU? Because I've been looking at benchmarks on and off and the performance does not seem that good, unless its with the GPU portion disabled causing CPU performance increase?


Having the GPU shut off doesn't grant any extra performance to the CPU portion. Kaveri will run circles around the 8150 in more ways than one. The only exception would possibly be those rare apps that actually not only use eight threads, but uses them fully.


----------



## heroxoot

I still don't think it warrants switching to it. So what would be better for gaming though, and 8350 + 7970 or a Kaveri + R9 series card of similar spec (280x)?


----------



## NaroonGTX

There's no difference between the HD 7000 series (Southern Islands) and most of the "new" cards, they're the same silicon except for The R9-290 and 290x, which are Volcanic Islands (Hawaii GPU).

Aside from that, it would depend on the game. Kaveri vs. Vishera -- Kaveri will win in CPU-limited games (games that only use one or a few threads) while Vishera would either win or at least be close to Kaveri in games that utilize lots of threads.


----------



## Seronx

It doesn't matter how much threads the games are using. Kaveri will be more stable than Trinity/Vishera simply because SteamrollerB cores. Kaveri will have less stalls from happening do to improvements from the front-end. Better Prefetch, Better Branch Prediction, Wider Dispatch, etc. While if the game is more operation bound the CPU and FPU part have more registers and lengthier queues.

1st -> Faster and more safer instruction delivery with less bubbles.
2nd -> More resources to do less L2 ~ L1 exchanges.

The GPU portion has more accelerators than in Trinity and has the ability to share physical/virtual memory between CPU and GPU.


----------



## Papadope

The only difference is the coolers, much nicer coolers on the "new" cards. Ironically the real new card, the R9-290 has a crappy cooler.


----------



## heroxoot

I guess either way few of us would switch from FX to kaveri unless the socket is changed to the new universal one. Unless I can't play games smoothly I won't upgrade from my 8150 either, though I have thought about an 8350.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I guess either way few of us would switch from FX to kaveri unless the socket is changed to the new universal one. Unless I can't play games smoothly I won't upgrade from my 8150 either, though I have thought about an 8350.


Or sell your FX-8150 on ebay and buy the FX-9370 w/ AIO water cooler for $219. Just look at this auction, This used FX-8150 already up to $127.50 with 3days and 23hours to go. What are you waiting for? Go, Go do it now. lol









http://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-FX-8150-3-6-GHz-Eight-Core-FD8150FRW8KGU-Processor-/221332742665?pt=CPUs&hash=item338875a209


----------



## heroxoot

I can't understand why anyone would pay that. I feel cheated for buying my 8150 as it is. I can't say its bad, but the hype that was build around it was a lie. Plus I'd have to buy the 9370 first and as a poor college student.....I'm poor.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I wonder why someone would pay that much for a used 8150 when they could just get an 8320 for a few more dollars, lol.


----------



## Papadope

Zambezi was overpriced but Vishera is where it should be, except the FX-9590.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

what are the chances of a Dual FM2+ socket board implementation of these APUs for those who want more cores? could this be a curve ball AMD is waiting to reveal?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Nope. Kaveri doesn't have any type of necessary interconnect tech to allow for such a config. Even the Opteron version (Berlin) is meant for 1P configs.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Orochi Rev B: AVX/XOP/FMA4
> Orochi Rev C/Trinity Rev A/Richland Rev A: F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4
> Kaveri Rev A/Rev B?: FGSGBase/XSAVEOPT+F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4
> Carrizo Rev A/etc: AVX2/MOVBE/BMI2/RDRND+FGSGBase/XSAVEOPT+F16C/BMI/TBM/FMA3+AVX/XOP/FMA4
> 
> Kaveri: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO
> Carrizo: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO
> 
> Look at all these patents!


You didnt answer my question. I already acknowledged the addition of new instruction sets. That is not essentialy a hardware change, but microcode.. If the cores are essentially the same, unless there is a redesign of the L1 and L2 cache that is not much of a change at all. , especially if there is no die shrink. That should be doable as a Kaveri refresh 6 months after Kaveris January availability. I believe Excavator comes on a die shrink because it is more than what Seronx is showing fior Carrizo. That is a big assumption, in the sense, that Seronx is more often wrong than right.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO
> Carrizo: 4 x 64-bit Execution ALUs / 4 x 64-bit Address Generation LUs / 8 x 64-bit FMACs / 8 x 64-bit FSTO


You are claiming still this leaked die shot is Steamroller, then. Which doesn't jive with kaveri leaks:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/89728?baseline=223722

Cache structure seems different than what that leaked die shot module appears to have.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Alleged Kaveri Pre-order prices
> 
> A10-7700K: $167
> A10-7850K: $189
> 
> Either AMD has good confidence in these parts or they're pricing themselves out of the market.


Pre-order price for the FX-8350 was $250+, it launched much cheaper than that, so hearing 189 for kaveri is good news,it will be around 150 tops.


----------



## yrettete

Are AMD purposely putting in a weaker iGPU to keep sales of their mid range gpus up.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Are AMD purposely putting in a weaker iGPU to keep sales of their mid range gpus up.


of course.. also they are slowly incorporating better and better GPUs as time comes.

I can see fore see them to have top and mid tier dGPUS in conjunction to mid to low iGPUs


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Are AMD purposely putting in a weaker iGPU to keep sales of their mid range gpus up.


But of course. The iGPU are not ment to be a high end gaming solution, but a step up from onboard graphics. One of the common suggestions is hybrid crossfire using a high end APU with a high end GPU.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Are AMD purposely putting in a weaker iGPU to keep sales of their mid range gpus up.


What Radeon class of iGPU would you like to see in an APU then?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> But of course. The iGPU are not ment to be a high end gaming solution, but a step up from onboard graphics. One of the common suggestions is hybrid crossfire using a high end APU with a high end GPU.


I get what you are saying, just the step up part doesn't exactly fit.. It is more aiming for an all in one experience.. No you will not get 60 FPS on the highest settings however it will in fact though play it well enough that most games can be played.

As for the actual computes. with HSA and huma I can see them adding a a better iGPU every generation of chip.. That will push HSA even more and make actual computing that much better. This of course is a far different experience than "a step up from on board graphics" not saying that you are wrong, just the statement is too vague for my likings..


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> What Radeon class of iGPU would you like to see in an APU then?


i'd love a Hawaii class igpu but i also don't want a gimped cpu portion.

to accomplish both of these tasks the APU would likely have to be upwards of 500-600$ minimum.

and that is only really considering a quad core cpu.

not something that is a wise business move.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> i'd love a Hawaii class igpu but i also don't want a gimped cpu portion.
> 
> to accomplish both of these tasks the APU would likely have to be upwards of 500-600$ minimum.
> 
> and that is only really considering a quad core cpu.
> 
> not something that is a wise business move.


Can be done if we set IBM sized dies to be the limit of what is doable.
You could fit 4 steamroller modules and a 438mm^2 on a IBM die they are like 700mm^2


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> i'd love a Hawaii class igpu but i also don't want a gimped cpu portion.
> 
> to accomplish both of these tasks the APU would likely have to be upwards of 500-600$ minimum.
> 
> and that is only really considering a quad core cpu.
> 
> not something that is a wise business move.


True, also you would have the naysayers being all but intel does this in a < 75w package.. completely ignoring the compute


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> But of course. The iGPU are not ment to be a high end gaming solution, but a step up from onboard graphics. One of the common suggestions is hybrid crossfire using a high end APU with a high end GPU.
> 
> 
> 
> I get what you are saying, just the step up part doesn't exactly fit.. It is more aiming for an all in one experience.. No you will not get 60 FPS on the highest settings however it will in fact though play it well enough that most games can be played.
> 
> As for the actual computes. with HSA and huma I can see them adding a a better iGPU every generation of chip.. That will push HSA even more and make actual computing that much better. This of course is a far different experience than "a step up from on board graphics" not saying that you are wrong, just the statement is too vague for my likings..
Click to expand...

By a step up I honestly compared it to the iGPU of an intel CPU. They are trash for gaming. the iGPU of an AMD APU however is a step up in terms of performance in which case it can play many games with more detail and higher FPS.

Honestly when I finally buy a laptop I will most likely be buying one with an AMD APU just because of that. Lower power consumption, can play a lot of games on med when kaveri comes out I'm sure. Current APU probably can already.


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> For those looking for an upgrade in the AM3+ socket, the 9370 is now $219 at the egg, and comes with a CLC cooler. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113352


I literally would have jumped all over this if I saw it in time. I see the price is back up to $289.99 now...









Oh well, here's to hoping that a Vishera refresh comes out for AM3+ before the socket is EOL...


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> What Radeon class of iGPU would you like to see in an APU then?


Maybe a 7790.

Obviously not something ridiculously fast, that would cut into their GPU sales.


----------



## anubis44

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> I literally would have jumped all over this if I saw it in time. I see the price is back up to $289.99 now...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh well, here's to hoping that a Vishera refresh comes out for AM3+ before the socket is EOL...


Well, you probably mean you would have figuratively jumped on the FX chip, since literally jumping on it would have likey damaged it, rendering it unusable.









"Literally" means "as it is written", which is intended to denote that the events transpired exactly as they were written, without exaggeration.

Sorry to be a pr1ck, but it's getting irritating reading comments which misuse the term "literally" all over the web.


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anubis44*
> 
> Well, you probably mean you would have figuratively jumped on the FX chip, since literally jumping on it would have likey damaged it, rendering it unusable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Literally" means "as it is written", which is intended to denote that the events transpired exactly as they were written, without exaggeration.
> 
> Sorry to be a pr1ck, but it's getting irritating reading comments which misuse the term "literally" all over the web.


No, I was being serious. My two feet would have left the ground. "All over" doesn't exactly mean "on top of"







.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *anubis44*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> I literally would have jumped all over this if I saw it in time. I see the price is back up to $289.99 now...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh well, here's to hoping that a Vishera refresh comes out for AM3+ before the socket is EOL...
> 
> 
> 
> Well, you probably mean you would have figuratively jumped on the FX chip, since literally jumping on it would have likey damaged it, rendering it unusable.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Literally" means "as it is written", which is intended to denote that the events transpired exactly as they were written, without exaggeration.
> 
> Sorry to be a pr1ck, but it's getting irritating reading comments which misuse the term "literally" all over the web.
Click to expand...

Are you Ted from How I met your mother?

On topic: I would have hit that deal if I had the cash flow. Thing is my motherboard CPU list does not state it can run the 5ghz 8 cores so I probably would have been against it at least without major research.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Maybe a 7790.
> 
> Obviously not something ridiculously fast, that would cut into their GPU sales.


I can't see GPU's that powerful being put on APU's anytime soon, simply because they would be bottlenecked by the system memory. We only have dual-channel DDR3 which is already bottlenecking the current APU's. We'd need tri- or quad-channel DDR4 (with higher clocks than current DDR3 memory preferably) to get better results with stronger APU's. This is why I don't expect Carrizo to be a massive leap over Kaveri in terms of GPU.


----------



## anubis44

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> No, I was being serious. My two feet would have left the ground. "All over" doesn't exactly mean "on top of"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


but would they have landed ON the chip? Perhaps you would literally have jumped AT it?







is that closer?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Hello. I have not nor will I read all 1968 posts in this thread, but I can't believe I haven't subscribed to this yet.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> What Radeon class of iGPU would you like to see in an APU then?
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe a 7790.
> 
> Obviously not something ridiculously fast, that would cut into their GPU sales.
Click to expand...

That's a reasonable request. I'm glad you're not one of those kinds of people who wants an octacore Steamroller CPU + GCN 1.1 7950 on a single die.







A 7790 isn't too far out there, but there are a total of 12 compute units on the Kaveri chips. Four are CPU cores (2CUs/module) and the rest are GCN cores. If they removed a module, it would be entirely possible to have a dual-core CPU and an integrated 7770. However, i3s and A8s (some A6s too) and up all have four threads, so I doubt AMD would gimp their CPU when additional GPUs are comparatively easy to add. Wait until Carrizo, then ask again. We still don't know if Carrizo if DDR3, DDR4, or both nor how many modules it will have.

Question: how do smaller GPU transistors affect performance? I had read that Nvidia's most recent die shrink lost a lot of performance per shader though overall was more powerful. The 580s had 512 shaders and 680s had 1536 IIRC, but performance was not tripled. That could be wrong or me misremembering; I don't know which.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> I literally would have jumped all over this if I saw it in time. I see the price is back up to $289.99 now...


I didn't realize that was a sale, I thought it was the new price in general for it.









Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> On topic: I would have hit that deal if I had the cash flow. *Thing is my motherboard CPU list does not state it can run the 5ghz 8 cores* so I probably would have been against it at least without major research.


From MSI:
MSI 990FXA-GD80 motherboard supports AMD FX-9590 and FX-9370 Processors
Update the BIOS and Experience the Amazing 5GHz Speed


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> I literally would have jumped all over this if I saw it in time. I see the price is back up to $289.99 now...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't realize that was a sale, I thought it was the new price in general for it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> On topic: I would have hit that deal if I had the cash flow. *Thing is my motherboard CPU list does not state it can run the 5ghz 8 cores* so I probably would have been against it at least without major research.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> From MSI:
> MSI 990FXA-GD80 motherboard supports AMD FX-9590 and FX-9370 Processors
> Update the BIOS and Experience the Amazing 5GHz Speed
Click to expand...

I have the latest US bios, and the CPU list does not state it supports them. This is british news. We don't all get the same bios you know.


----------



## miklkit

The 9370 is still $199 for the CPU only, and the kit with the cooler is now $289 at Newegg.

Oddly the 9590 is $349 with or without the cooler kit at Newegg.

Ya, there are some people running the 9590 on the GD80 and they are having good luck so far. For some reason mine won't let me upgrade its bios, so I might try it with the old bios.


----------



## Papadope

@heroxoot

I'm pretty sure they just haven't updated the supported processor page. Asus has boards officially supporting FX-8350 yet the website still list Phenom II x6 1100T as the last supported processor.

And multiple people on the forum are running the chip on that board already.


----------



## heroxoot

Ahh ok. Well my board is 180w max TDP or something I thought. I guess its just an OC'd 8350 anyways.


----------



## petercrab

So with a bit of luck Kaveri (assuming 30% increase over 4 core vishera), cpu wise will be about as fast as the first i7 (Nehalem) processors released 5 years ago back in 2008, admittedly for a much high price than kaveri. Why must AMD be so far behind dammit, I want to get AMD but they don't seem very good at the moment.


----------



## Kuivamaa

FX-9370 runs just fine in old CVF non-z, I'd expect every AM3+ motherboard out there able to "see" piledriver chips to be technically 9xx0 compatible. If your mobo can support an FX-8320/8350 clocked at those frequencies, they can probably deal with 9xx0 too.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *petercrab*
> 
> So with a bit of luck Kaveri (assuming 30% increase over 4 core vishera), cpu wise will be about as fast as the first i7 (Nehalem) processors released 5 years ago back in 2008, admittedly for a much high price than kaveri. Why must AMD be so far behind dammit, I want to get AMD but they don't seem very good at the moment.


To be fair this consumes a bit less and/while having a pretty capable gpu and potential HSA later on (and mantle)

Then there is also the point that Intel is stagnant and remains that way in this segment.

OC vs OC it should be able to compete and be only a little behind the 2500k.


----------



## yrettete

What does HSA do ? How much performance gain ?

And how much performance gain does mantle give ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What does HSA do ? How much performance gain ?
> 
> And how much performance gain does mantle give ?


http://developer.amd.com/resources/heterogeneous-computing/what-is-heterogeneous-system-architecture-hsa/

https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-sprint-us&source=android-browser&q=hsa+amd

the true speed up is yet to be seen as it depends on developers to adopt it


----------



## yrettete

Hmm.

Sounds like complex jargon to hide the fact to investors and customers that Steamroller simply isn't very good.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> Sounds like complex jargon to hide the fact to investors and customers that Steamroller simply isn't very good.


Or perhaps you just don't understand and need to Google and read some more.. it is amds way of catching up and gaining better market share by showing that performance is not always hatdware.. Also it is cheaper for them because they have to spend less in research and development

I think you need to read a lot more as your posts show a lack of proper knowledge in this subject


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> Sounds like complex jargon to hide the fact to investors and customers that Steamroller simply isn't very good.


Not sure if troll? Hardware only gets you so far. If software is bogged down with lots of useless crap, then you lose performance. Look at Mantle. It can sustain 60FPS in BF4 on a 2GHz 8350. Why? It isn't bogged down with legacy junk code that just isn't used anymore like in DirectX and OpenGL.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> Sounds like complex jargon to hide the fact to investors and customers that Steamroller simply isn't very good.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> Sounds like complex jargon to hide the fact to investors and customers that Steamroller simply isn't very good.
> 
> Of course its complex. What do you think its going to be? Your post is a pretty obvious troll.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not sure if troll? Hardware only gets you so far. If software is bogged down with lots of useless crap, then you lose performance. Look at Mantle. It can sustain 60FPS in BF4 on a 2GHz 8350. Why? It isn't bogged down with legacy junk code that just isn't used anymore like in DirectX and OpenGL.


When was Mantle demonstrated ?

As far as I know it hasn't been yet.


----------



## NaroonGTX

A developer who has been playing with Mantle in their engine demonstrated how much CPU overhead gets removed. They downclocked all eight cores of an FX-8350 to 2ghz and the game was still GPU-bound. It hasn't been demonstrated to the public yet.


----------



## rpsgc

Google is a wonderful thing. How about you use it?

https://twitter.com/cavemanjim/status/400802892208037888


----------



## L4dd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rpsgc*
> 
> Google is a wonderful thing. How about you use it?
> 
> https://twitter.com/cavemanjim/status/400802892208037888


Thank you for this link; its great news for AMD!


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Or perhaps you just don't understand and need to Google and read some more.. it is amds way of catching up and gaining better market share by showing that performance is not always hatdware.. Also it is cheaper for them because they have to spend less in research and development
> 
> I think you need to read a lot more as your posts show a lack of proper knowledge in this subject


On the positive side, ignorance does bring out more information as other attempt EDUCATE.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> On the positive side, ignorance does bring out more information as other attempt EDUCATE.


touche


----------



## yrettete

What is HSA going to be used for ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What is HSA going to be used for ?


In short it allows the GPU and CPU use the same memory allocation, this will allow better communication between the 2 and less back and forth thus eliminating unnecessary overhead


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> In short it allows the GPU and CPU use the same memory allocation, this will allow better communication between the 2 and less back and forth thus eliminating unnecessary overhead


Or simply put:

ITS THE FUTURE

Did you hear that? Wow that was loud.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Or simply put:
> 
> ITS THE FUTURE
> 
> Did you hear that? Wow that was loud.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

^^^^^^^

OW MY EARS they now smell colors


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> ^^^^^^^
> 
> OW MY EARS they now smell colors


I gotta have some fun sometime, right?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What is HSA going to be used for ?
> 
> 
> 
> In short it allows the GPU and CPU use the same memory allocation, this will allow better communication between the 2 and less back and forth thus eliminating unnecessary overhead
Click to expand...

I believe you are thinking of hUMA. HSA lets the iGPU act as a parallel processor for, most likely, floating point operations.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> I believe you are thinking of hUMA. HSA lets the iGPU act as a parallel processor for, most likely, floating point operations.


You may be right.. can't remember and about to head to work.. but both will be here and both from amd and both will be the future..


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Ya, they go hand in hand. Unified memory means snappier GPU in any case and is necessary for effective (re: low-latency) coprocessing.


----------



## Durquavian

I think HSA incorporates HUMA, which in turn is necessary for HSA.


----------



## NaroonGTX

hUMA is basically an integral part of HSA itself. The whole idea is to not only allow the GPU to perform tasks that it is better suited to in compute, but also to drastically reduce the latency of communication between the CPU & GPU. Carrizo will take this another step further by having HSA integrated at the hardware level, and introducing GPU context switching and pre-emption as well. I can't wait to see AMD's dGPU's with GCN 2.0 on 20nm as well.


----------



## Seronx




----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> hUMA is basically an integral part of HSA itself. The whole idea is to not only allow the GPU to perform tasks that it is better suited to in compute, but also to drastically reduce the latency of communication between the CPU & GPU. Carrizo will take this another step further by having HSA integrated at the hardware level, and introducing GPU context switching and pre-emption as well. I can't wait to see AMD's dGPU's with GCN 2.0 on 20nm as well.


I hope that's the case but I thought AMD barely acknowledged Carrizo and the name came from a leak. It's too early to say it will have that implemented imo.


----------



## NaroonGTX

An AMD employee was listed on his Linkedin profile as having done work on "Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk APU's", so the name is all but confirmed (unless they randomly decide to change the codename for some reason.)


----------



## Seronx

Kaveri -> 28nm (28-nm HPP)
Carrizo -> 28nm (28nm-HPP Optimal*)
Basilisk -> ~15nm (14nm-XM/16nm-FF)

*Optimal: Redone with newer libraries and with more optimal power aware techniques.


----------



## tjwolf88

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri -> 28nm (28-nm HPP)
> Carrizo -> 28nm (28nm-HPP Optimal*)
> Basilisk -> ~15nm (14nm-XM/16nm-FF)
> 
> *Optimal: Redone with newer libraries and with more optimal power aware techniques.


16nm in 2016 will be almost with Intels 14nm. AMD would finally be catching up!


----------



## heroxoot

So what happens when we reach the smallest possible NM?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So what happens when we reach the smallest possible NM?


Add a decimal.
JK. I'm not sure what happens then. i thought I saw a post saying something about Intel saying after 7nm, it's going to be really difficult, and we might as well find something else to use. Something about silicons limit


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So what happens when we reach the smallest possible NM?


People move to picometers then to femtometers then to attometers.

Attometers in stuff isn't expected till after 2050.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri -> 28nm (28-nm HPP)
> Carrizo -> 28nm (28nm-HPP Optimal*)
> Basilisk -> ~15nm (14nm-XM/16nm-FF)
> 
> *Optimal: Redone with newer libraries and with more optimal power aware techniques.


I doubt that they'll keep 28nm for Carrizo but they have been stuck like forever first with 45nm and now with 32 I sure hope they won't keep 28 too long as it is not only behind but also the next gen gpu cores will be 20nm.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> 16nm in 2016 will be almost with Intels 14nm. AMD would finally be catching up!


You mean GloFo is catching up woth their 14nm procces for small ultra mobile chips.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Add a decimal.
> JK. I'm not sure what happens then. i thought I saw a post saying something about Intel saying after 7nm, it's going to be really difficult, and we might as well find something else to use. Something about silicons limit


Quantum computing? YES!

Actually, I think there was research in carbon tubes that would be the next step after that.. If I am not mistaken Samsung (or Micron) can't remember exactly is already working with carbon tubes for memory modules. It just is not consumer ready yet.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Add a decimal.
> JK. I'm not sure what happens then. i thought I saw a post saying something about Intel saying after 7nm, it's going to be really difficult, and we might as well find something else to use. Something about silicons limit


Graphene will be used instead of silicon .

But that is about 10 years away.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Graphene will be used instead of silicon .
> 
> But that is about 10 years away.


There is still the 3rd dimension for chips now. We still only use 2 dimensions for connection and just have started adding 3rd. This will likely fill the gap till next element.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> hUMA is basically an integral part of HSA itself. The whole idea is to not only allow the GPU to perform tasks that it is better suited to in compute, but also to drastically reduce the latency of communication between the CPU & GPU. Carrizo will take this another step further by having HSA integrated at the hardware level, and introducing GPU context switching and pre-emption as well. I can't wait to see AMD's dGPU's with GCN 2.0 on 20nm as well.


Well, in that case, I'm getting a new laptop in 2015, how about you? Maybe build a new rig or at least upgrade the CPU and motherboard.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So what happens when we reach the smallest possible NM?
> 
> 
> 
> People move to picometers then to femtometers then to attometers.
> 
> Attometers in stuff isn't expected till after 2050.
Click to expand...

Atoms are typically measured in angstroms, a horribly unnecessary unit of measurement equal to 0.1nm, 100pm, or 10^-10 meters. I hate them and refuse to use them. Helium, the smallest element, has a radius of 28pm. I don't think we're going to see quantum computing for a very long time though. For that matter, I don't think subatomic particles really have true "sizes" per se, since what we know of as size is thanks to near-C electrons forming almost a wall around an atom.


----------



## yrettete

Whatever future technology does develop, it unfortunately won't be AMD leading the world to it.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Well, in that case, I'm getting a new laptop in 2015, how about you? Maybe build a new rig or at least upgrade the CPU and motherboard.
> Atoms are typically measured in angstroms, a horribly unnecessary unit of measurement equal to 0.1nm, 100pm, or 10^-10 meters. I hate them and refuse to use them. Helium, the smallest element, has a radius of 28pm. I don't think we're going to see quantum computing for a very long time though. For that matter, I don't think subatomic particles really have true "sizes" per se, since what we know of as size is thanks to near-C electrons forming almost a wall around an atom.


But what will the chips be made of by then ? I doubt we are still going to be using silicon chips with awkward pins in them in the future.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Whatever future technology does develop, it unfortunately won't be AMD leading the world to it.


I wouldn't bet on it. AMD is known for making huge strides in tech development and ingenuity. A lot of the worlds progress isn't usually a product of the biggest and best but from the unexpected ( and usually by accident).


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> But what will the chips be made of by then ? I doubt we are still going to be using silicon chips with awkward pins in them in the future.


Go read some sci-fi or watch a movie. Right now we can only speculate.


----------



## yrettete

Well, Steamroller certainly isn't the "future" and certainly not revolutionary.
If the prices of the 8320 and 8350 drop, then Steamroller will become even less significant..

Just for interest.
A graphene transistor was clocked at 427 GHz.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1420346/bw-427-ghz-graphene-transistor-clocked


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Steamroller != the future
Kaveri = the future
HAS = the future
hUMA = the future


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Well, Steamroller certainly isn't the "future" and certainly not revolutionary.
> If the prices of the 8320 and 8350 drop, then Steamroller will become even less significant..
> 
> Just for interest.
> A graphene transistor was clocked at 427 GHz.
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1420346/bw-427-ghz-graphene-transistor-clocked


Silicon was doing 350ghz all the way back in 2002


----------



## yrettete

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/08/07/graphene-vs-silicon-the-hype-and-reality/

What makes a good material for a CPU ? What is the most important factor ? Conductivity ?


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Steamroller != the future
> Kaveri = the future
> HAS = the future
> hUMA = the future


My point was, if you currently have an 8350, why would anyone upgrade to Steamroller ?

Customers should just keep the 8350 for another year.

I am sure Steamroller could be a lot, lot more powerful, but if it was, this would make all their previous CPUs redundant and much less value for money.

By Steamroller being only 10% better, they can simply mlk more money off customers.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

If you have an Ivy Bridge i7, why would you upgrade to a Haswell i5? It's the same thing: better architecture at the cost of threads you probably won't be using.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> 16nm in 2016 will be almost with Intels 14nm. AMD would finally be catching up!


The rest of the world measures nanometer size differently than Intel. 22nm Intel node is actually almost the same size as TSMC and GF using 28nm. So if Intel is on 14nm, and AMD brings out a 16nm processor, then AMD actually has a smaller process node processor. Intel does not like to use proper measurements and just claims basically whatever they feel like for a size. Just FYI. They started this a while back, just like Intel's TDP is not the rest of the worlds TDP.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> http://www.itproportal.com/2012/08/07/graphene-vs-silicon-the-hype-and-reality/
> 
> What makes a good material for a CPU ? What is the most important factor ? Conductivity ?


The ability to hold a charge and the time to switch between an on/off


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Well, in that case, I'm getting a new laptop in 2015, how about you? Maybe build a new rig or at least upgrade the CPU and motherboard.
> Atoms are typically measured in angstroms, a horribly unnecessary unit of measurement equal to 0.1nm, 100pm, or 10^-10 meters. I hate them and refuse to use them. Helium, the smallest element, has a radius of 28pm. I don't think we're going to see quantum computing for a very long time though. For that matter, I don't think subatomic particles really have true "sizes" per se, since what we know of as size is thanks to near-C electrons forming almost a wall around an atom.


My student club is named Angstrom but yeah we study aplied physics.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> My point was, if you currently have an 8350, why would anyone upgrade to Steamroller ?
> 
> Customers should just keep the 8350 for another year.
> 
> I am sure Steamroller could be a lot, lot more powerful, but if it was, this would make all their previous CPUs redundant and much less value for money.
> 
> By Steamroller being only 10% better, they can simply mlk more money off customers.


HSA code stomps and Kaveri has ith while the FX is only normal cores.

Also a 30% gain in clock for clock performance and a reasonable crossfireable gpu.

It will be the platform to be for budget gaming with a easy upgrade path. With Mantle games this might even become the place to be for budget gaming.
(no wonder a lower end steambox will be based on it)


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> The rest of the world measures nanometer size differently than Intel. 22nm Intel node is actually almost the same size as TSMC and GF using 28nm. So if Intel is on 14nm, and AMD brings out a 16nm processor, then AMD actually has a smaller process node processor. Intel does not like to use proper measurements and just claims basically whatever they feel like for a size. Just FYI. They started this a while back, just like Intel's TDP is not the rest of the worlds TDP.


Didn't they start doing this with Ghz? Back when AMD had to start calling them Athlon 2600+ for a 2.1Ghz that was as fast as an intel 2.6Ghz. Ah the memories.


----------



## yrettete

Does more GHZ mean faster CPU ?

Someone told me this is the wrong way to judge the speed of a processor.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Does more GHZ mean faster CPU?


GHz means faster processor if CPI and IPC are the same.


----------



## NaroonGTX

More GHz used to mean a faster processor back in the day, but as AMD and Intel's x86 chips began to offer radically different architectures, that was no longer the case. A more efficient architecture will be faster than the other chip clock for clock no matter what. Things begin to become blurred once different clock speeds come into play.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> More GHz used to mean a faster processor back in the day, but as AMD and Intel's x86 chips began to offer radically different architectures, that was no longer the case. A more efficient architecture will be faster than the other chip clock for clock no matter what. Things begin to become blurred once different clock speeds come into play.


And then you have intel where they make a CPU that cannot OC very well so a earlier model can beat out the latest. Case in point, you can OC a 2500k to 5ghz and it beats a 4670k @ 4.6ghz. Then again, the difference between the 2 at stock is very little. Not sure why that happened but AMD vs AMD, the newer ones seem to win with exception of the bulldozers.


----------



## Papadope

Johan Andersson explains how Mantle will leverage AMD's new "Kaveri" APU


----------



## NaroonGTX

I watched that earlier today. Interesting how he mentioned the asynchronous Xfire between Kaveri and GCN cards.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I watched that earlier today. Interesting how he mentioned the asynchronous Xfire between Kaveri and GCN cards.


I think he meant it as, the compute is running entirely on Kaveri's IGPU while the rest of the graphics are being rendered by the dedicated GPU. We have always talked about this but I don't know if it was confirmed by AMD. That would greatly benefit many games, like turning on TressFX and seeing no drop in FPS.


----------



## yrettete

Steamroller is only on sale for a year before Excavator ??

Seems a little bit pointless.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That would be a nice kick in the pants to all the "APU's are worthless! rawr!" crowd.
Quote:


> Steamroller is only on sale for a year before Excavator ??
> 
> Seems a little bit pointless.


facepalm.jpg


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Steamroller is only on sale for a year before Excavator ??
> 
> Seems a little bit pointless.


Intel spits out something new every single year, also often requiring a completely new board.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Steamroller is only on sale for a year before Excavator ??
> 
> Seems a little bit pointless.
> 
> 
> 
> Intel spits out something new every single year, also often requiring a completely new board.
Click to expand...

And this is why I quit buying intel. AMD only spits out a new socket every 5 years? I like that better.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> And this is why I quit buying intel. AMD only spits out a new socket every 5 years? I like that better.


And locks their processors which is way worse since a new board is only like 100 euro while the proc costs 300


----------



## NaroonGTX

And removes the ability to get a decent overclock out of locked processors by gimping/removing FSB overclocking for no valid reason whatsoever.


----------



## nitrubbb

hopefully memory prices drop for january-february


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I think he meant it as, the compute is running entirely on Kaveri's IGPU while the rest of the graphics are being rendered by the dedicated GPU. We have always talked about this but I don't know if it was confirmed by AMD. That would greatly benefit many games, like turning on TressFX and seeing no drop in FPS.


I do hope he means exactly that. iGPU then becomes a co-processor and dual graphics will be unecessary under mantle, in the sense you already put your strong igpu in good use. Actually it is better this way, because you won't be forced around a similar level GPU (7750/7770/7790) to DG it, you will be able to put a R9 290 in there and still iGPU will be beneficial. AMD absolutely needs to make their iGPU a selling point in desktop (for laptops it already is) and I think this is the way. Good enough for decent gaming on their own, and a boost for core gaming through compute. They need a bunch of "Big" games to showcase benefits, and I think EA will offer that. BF4, new Mass Effect,Battlefront you name it. Good news.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

New Battlefront makes me sad. It's like a reboot of Firefly: I want it to happen, but it just won't have the same magic to it.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> hopefully memory prices drop for january-february


Lulz. No hope for that. My RAM upgrade for my laptop (2x4GB, 1333MHz) cost $40 last year. My rig has $60 (2x4GB, 1600MHz) RAM just six or seven months later. Prices suck and you'll just need to account for that in a rig.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> New Battlefront makes me sad. It's like a reboot of Firefly: I want it to happen, but it just won't have the same magic to it.
> Lulz. No hope for that. My RAM upgrade for my laptop (2x4GB, 1333MHz) cost $40 last year. My rig has $60 (2x4GB, 1600MHz) RAM just six or seven months later. Prices suck and you'll just need to account for that in a rig.


No I will postpone building until they normalize







PS4 ftw!


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> And removes the ability to get a decent overclock out of locked processors by gimping/removing FSB overclocking for no valid reason whatsoever.


... And removes instruction sets and features from its more expensive unlocked processors.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> hopefully memory prices drop for january-february


I bought 8GB of DDR3 2133 last night for $59.99 for a new A10-6700 build. There are some good deals going on now. I agree though, generally they are priced too high.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I bought 8GB of DDR3 2133 last night for $59.99 for a new A10-5700 build. There are some good deals going on now. I agree though, generally they are priced too high.


I blame ssds lol


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I do hope he means exactly that. iGPU then becomes a co-processor and dual graphics will be unecessary under mantle, in the sense you already put your strong igpu in good use. Actually it is better this way, because you won't be forced around a similar level GPU (7750/7770/7790) to DG it, you will be able to put a R9 290 in there and still iGPU will be beneficial. AMD absolutely needs to make their iGPU a selling point in desktop (for laptops it already is) and I think this is the way. Good enough for decent gaming on their own, and a boost for core gaming through compute. They need a bunch of "Big" games to showcase benefits, and I think EA will offer that. BF4, new Mass Effect,Battlefront you name it. Good news.


Yes, They really need to start pushing it now with Kaveri and then follow it up with a 6 Core APU. It would be the new sweet spot for gamers, those who want the extra threads of the i7 but only want to spend the price of an i5 plus HSA compute for games that support it.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I blame ssds lol


Lol, it could be but the ram market has been price fixed on and off for years now. I typically stick with Corsair when buying memory but their prices are just too high at the moment. I've never tried G.Skill so im just going to hope for the best with these.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Lol, it could be but the ram market has been price fixed on and off for years now. I typically stick with Corsair when buying memory but their prices are just too high at the moment. I've never tried G.Skill so im just going to hope for the best with these.


I've had 2 sets of Gskill sniper's and they are working perfectly. I also put Gskill in my wife's lappy, so far so good.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I bought 8GB of DDR3 2133 last night for $59.99 for a new A10-6700 build. There are some good deals going on now. I agree though, generally they are priced too high.


Those same sticks for 8GB would have been $45 last year at this time. SSD's arent to blame, it is the manufacturers who stopped production because prices were too low so they wanted to lessen the supply to charge more. Which sucks but it is really fine, they had to do something. These costs are actually more correct and reasonable. RAM has always been this price or higher, getting down to $45 for good density, fast speed memory just isnt enough profit for the companies making the stuff.

I remember back in the day when I had to spend $400 on 512MB of RDRAM to upgrade my Pentium 4 based Dell. Or when I spent $250 to get 1GB of DDR500 RAM back in the Athlon 64 days. Memory has been getting cheaper and cheaper over the years and it needs to stop right about where it is now, otherwise no one will want to push the speed limits anymore because the industry has no profit.


----------



## petercrab

Looking forward to the Kaveri benchmarks too see how good/ bad it is.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Steamroller is only on sale for a year before Excavator ??
> 
> Seems a little bit pointless.


Epic post...... Not!


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I bought 8GB of DDR3 2133 last night for $59.99 for a new A10-6700 build. There are some good deals going on now. I agree though, generally they are priced too high.


I paid $230 for 8 megs of ram in 1992 for my Quadra 800.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> ... And removes instruction sets and features from its more expensive unlocked processors.


On principle I won't let companies crap on me. That is why I refuse to buy anything Intel.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

EDIT: Please ignore any buttholery in the following post. I just reread it and wow that was not my intent.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chrisjames61*
> 
> I paid $230 for 8 megs of ram in 1992 for my Quadra 800.


You know there's a multi-quote button, right?







That really doesn't mean anything. That was 20 years ago; of course prices have gone down! Did you know that the first 128GB consumer SSD was $3400? That was back in the ancient days of 2008. Crucial M500s have 1024GB of NAND flash, and they MSRP for $600. Prices for the largest drives are just 2% of what they were five years ago. RAM prices are much the same. "Oh, nobody needs 32MB! [...] What are you doing that needs 512MB? [...] Wow, what's wrong with you? Why are you wasting so much money on 4GB of RAM? [...] Dude, really, 32GB? That's insane!" Same deal. Current generation high-end GPUs have 3-4GB of VRAM (Titan doesn't count). Last gen was 2-3GB. Two ago was 2GB or less. The first terabyte HDD was released with four 250GB platters back in '07 or '08. There are now laptop HDDs with twice the capacity (and one less platter with each having half the surface area of a desktop platter). We're just getting more and more data that needs to be stored. RAM prices are fair, as was said, but I still think it sucks they went up. I don't think NAND production would affect RAM though since they're two different processes.


----------



## NaroonGTX

^I don't think he meant anything by it, he was just saying it matter-of-factly.


----------



## Papadope

Another HSA benefit for Gaming.






It looks very similar to BenQ's Black eQualizer found on their gaming monitors.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> ^I don't think he meant anything by it, he was just saying it matter-of-factly.


I didn't mean anything by it Naroon. Just pointing out how good we have it today vs 20 years ago.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah that's what I'd figured.









Also, check this out: http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=202444&postcount=597

Seems like Kaveri and Mantle will be more impressive than we'd imagined...


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Do we have any list of hybrid crossfire compatible GPUs and is it possible for the 290s to be on that list? GCN 1.1 has allowed GPUs to share the load better and it might just work.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chrisjames61*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> ^I don't think he meant anything by it, he was just saying it matter-of-factly.
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't mean anything by it Naroon. Just pointing out how good we have it today vs 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I came off wrong. The tdch advances in just five or so years is amazing: SSDs are affordable, dual or more core CPUs exist for consumers, APUs have driven prices even lower... Now is a happy time.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Sadly still no info on what Kaveri will be able to HC with.

CES '14 can't come soon enough...


----------



## yawa

I've been pestering every AMD exec I can find on twitter and not a peep or a slip up to be found. Though interestingly Jimmy Prior ( we are buds so i can call him that) did hint that Kaveri wouldn't necessarily be a side grade from my FX 8350.

Thing is I'm all in with this either way. My friend needs a computer so I'm using the spare parts I have lying around and the components I replace when I get a Kaveri and FM2+ motherboard on the 14th to build her one. As such I'm going to be one of the first people running a Kaveri, R290, and 2400+MHz ram in a custom water loop on this board, and I promise the moment I have it up and running that day I will post all the benchmarks ( stock and max over clock) we can handle.

That being said I really wish someone, somewhere would leak a synthetic benchmark or two so I know what I'm getting into with this.

**** On a side note, is FM2 similar enough to AM3 that I won't need to buy a new CPU water block? Cause if not I need to get on that next week.****


----------



## NaroonGTX

FM2 and AM3 can use pretty much the same coolers and such. It's been like that ever since AM2, which stretches back many years. Gotta applaud them for that.

And yeah, I sent a tweet to Roy Taylor and he didn't even reply, lol. I didn't even ask about performance or anything. AMD employees seem to be under a strict NDA when it comes to anything Kaveri-related.


----------



## Kuivamaa

In the meantime,If this cryptocurrency craze is going strong when kaveri launches, I foresee them selling as hotcakes.


----------



## yrettete

On the ps4, they are using a 7850 gpu ?

Is this true ? And when will they make an APU with a 7850 gpu on it ?


----------



## Kuivamaa

They aren't using a 7850, they have just used (iirc) 18 GCN compute units. In comparison a 7850 has 16 and a 7870 has 20 but I am not sure what are the rest of PS4 GPU specs. Anyway, they didn't just stick a Pitcairn chip (7850/7870) in there, not to mention console SoC's are a class of their own (two unified jaguar quad CPU's etc. totally different kind of beast). Kaveri is also using another type of architecture for the CPU. Don't expect to see a consumer APU with that class of graphics anytime soon, due to TDP/die size/bandwidth limitations.


----------



## yrettete

What about Excavator ? What will the iGPU be on that ?


----------



## NaroonGTX

The PS4's GPU is indeed Pitcairn. The 20 CU's are there on the die, but only 18 of them are enabled to have good yields.

Carrizo's iGPU will be Pirate Islands-based. Don't expect anything ridiculous from it, I think Carrizo will be perf per watt-focused, not balls-out performance-focused.


----------



## yrettete

what's the best iGPU that can theoretically be put on a good CPU


----------



## NaroonGTX

If they wanted, they could have an APU with a 7950 on it. The problems with that would be the die size (would be massive, margins wouldn't be that good, would have more yield issues, etc.) and in order to provide adequate bandwidth for the graphics, there would need to be lots of on-package GDDR5 RAM as well. Attaching 2 modules along with the rest of the die logic (L2 caches, various I/O buses, memory controller, etc.) would probably make the chip so big, it would need a new socket.

That's just hypothetical though, to show why it's not really ideal to try to push for such a thing. Carrizo will still be bottlenecked by DDR3 dual-channel memory, so I don't expect a massive increase in GPU power there. We might see an extra 2 or 4 GCN CU's on there at the most, if they even add anymore.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> what's the best iGPU that can theoretically be put on a good CPU


Or, if they use the 12 CUs total, you can get a 1M/2C CPU and essentially an integrated 7770.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> If they wanted, they could have an APU with a 7950 on it. The problems with that would be the die size (would be massive, margins wouldn't be that good, would have more yield issues, etc.) and in order to provide adequate bandwidth for the graphics, there would need to be lots of on-package GDDR5 RAM as well. Attaching 2 modules along with the rest of the die logic (L2 caches, various I/O buses, memory controller, etc.) would probably make the chip so big, it would need a new socket.
> 
> That's just hypothetical though, to show why it's not really ideal to try to push for such a thing. Carrizo will still be bottlenecked by DDR3 dual-channel memory, so I don't expect a massive increase in GPU power there. We might see an extra 2 or 4 GCN CU's on there at the most, if they even add anymore.


I think were just going to see a clock speed increase. Lot's of room to raise clocks on Kaveri and Carrizo is 65w, doubt that means more CU's.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Don't forget HDL, which means clocks will probably drop again.


----------



## Papadope

That will be on the CPU side. From my understanding HDL is already being used on the graphics side as it is used on the dGPU's. The new R9-290X uses UHDL so perhaps we may see UHDL but clocks were not lowered on the 290X.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> That will be on the CPU side. From my understanding HDL is already being used on the graphics side as it is used on the dGPU's. The new R9-290X uses UHDL so perhaps we may see UHDL but clocks were not lowered on the 290X.


I don't think so I think it'll be HDL since getting CPU TTL as dense as GPU TTL is very very hard.
AMD also has more volume at TSMC for the gpus which is why they can use those extra design tools.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah I know, then again they might make the transition from 28nm Bulk to 28nm FD-SOI, which would actually be quite trivial. That would explain a perf boost due to uarch improvements and higher CPU clocks to offset any clock penalty on the CPU due to HDL.


----------



## chrisjames61

No offense taken CynicalUnicorn. Oh, and I paid about $4,000 for that Quadra 800. Ouch!


----------



## tjwolf88

I forsee HDL for Kaveri and UHDL with Basilisk.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> I forsee HDL for Kaveri and UHDL with Basilisk.


The proof of concept of HDL is from the Floating Point Unit from Bulldozer/Piledriver. The reasoning for going HDL is because 20nm onwards doesn't have HSL in a sense.


----------



## yawa

I doubt we'll see even that much of a gcn increase in Excavator. You must keep in mind, DDR3 is going to hold the GPU side of things back very much so until DDR4 boards are on the market. The reason a lot of people went "bleeehhhhbleeehhhh" when Excavator was announced for FM2+ was because it basically confirmed FM2+ has no chance of not being superceded by an enthusiast gade socket down the line.

My money is on this socket having a two year shelf life ( whereas before I would have said one year, when we all thought Excavator was going to require DDR4), and Excavator to be a more impressive x86 core upgrade than we are expecting followed by a less impressive igpu upgrade in comparison


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Well, we still don't know if Carrizo will act like the Phenoms and Athlons of old where they support old, now being phased out RAM and fast, shiny, new, energy efficient RAM depending on the motherboard in which it's seated. I can see both native DDR3 and DDR4 support as a possibility if it's forwards-compatible with FM3. It'll be a more efficient GPU, 768 shaders at the absolute max, and a much-improved CPU. My predictions, refer back to this in 2015.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> I doubt we'll see even that much of a gcn increase in Excavator. You must keep in mind, DDR3 is going to hold the GPU side of things back very much so until DDR4 boards are on the market. The reason a lot of people went "bleeehhhhbleeehhhh" when Excavator was announced for FM2+ was because it basically confirmed FM2+ has no chance of not being superceded by an enthusiast gade socket down the line.
> 
> My money is on this socket having a two year shelf life ( whereas before I would have said one year, when we all thought Excavator was going to require DDR4), and Excavator to be a more impressive x86 core upgrade than we are expecting followed by a less impressive igpu upgrade in comparison


This is all based on an unproven assumption that the slides shown here 2 weeks ago are AMD 's material and not manipulated data. The guy who posted the data is NOT a regular poster on this thread and has no track record to judge his credibility. When he posted here then innumerable sites used the slides as if they constituted proof when they are at this point nothing of the sort. I rather be very cautious on this score , as there have been so many false projections in the past and it so easy to take a legitimate chart and manipulate the data on it.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Check the most recent posts here. That is the most up-to-date information from AMD available.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

So I know AMD isn't as big as Intel, and they aren't stupid. Put that together with the official statement of FX isn't EOL, and it seems like they are giving developers a taste of Mantle, hUMA, and HSA, and letting people choose between pure CPU power, or HSA down the road.
Now I don't know what they can/can't do, but I doubt they are stupid enough to cut the FX line. If they did that, they lose on server chips too.

Off topic: I saw a post with a picture of a bingo sheet of common misconceptions about PC (actually it was a bingo sheet to use on console gamers). I want to use it on my friends, but can't find it...


----------



## NaroonGTX

The maps were real: http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17995-amd-forbereder-kabini-for-stationara-datorer-med-sockel-fs1b

Even sweclockers has all the slides. FX is done for now.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Check the most recent posts here. That is the most up-to-date information from AMD available.


Since I remotely viewed all the APU keynotes and over 25 of the breakout sessions on the APU365 website, I am well aware of AMD's public positions. That in no way legitimizes the roamap that people are referring to here that was uploaded some 2 to 2 1/2 weeks ago, not in any way.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The maps were real: http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17995-amd-forbereder-kabini-for-stationara-datorer-med-sockel-fs1b
> 
> Even sweclockers has all the slides. FX is done for now.


The roadmaps were first posted on this thread and subsequently made it to other websites, tell me how that makes them real? "It was posted on the internet, it has to be true. DA!?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The maps were real: http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17995-amd-forbereder-kabini-for-stationara-datorer-med-sockel-fs1b
> 
> Even sweclockers has all the slides. FX is done for now.


AMD representative said that slide is fake.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> AMD representative said that slide is fake.


Which AMD representative?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Correction, only James Prior said he didn't ever see those maps before, he didn't say they were fake. It was Hexus who reported it was fake.

Also, the guy who posted the maps here only posted one slide, and he showed the rest of the slides in an image. The sweclockers article doesn't have the watermarks that were on the maps posted in this thread.

The maps weren't uploaded before because they clearly say 'AMD Confidential' at the bottom, they weren't meant to be released to the public.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> it's not real. FX is not end-of-life


Source


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Correction, only James Prior said he didn't ever see those maps before, he didn't say they were fake. It was Hexus who reported it was fake.
> 
> Also, the guy who posted the maps here only posted one slide, and he showed the rest of the slides in an image. The sweclockers article doesn't have the watermarks that were on the maps posted in this thread.
> 
> The maps weren't uploaded before because they clearly say 'AMD Confidential' at the bottom, they weren't meant to be released to the public.


And AMD is the only one capable of typing AMD Confidential on a document?


----------



## NaroonGTX

The thing is, the map doesn't say FX is EOL. EOL means not being produced, not being sold. Vishera will continue to be produced and sold throughout 2014 and 2015. AMD said earlier this year that only FM1 and AM3 were being phased out, not AM3+.

It's just PR speak. AM3+ isn't getting anymore chips.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The thing is, the map doesn't say FX is EOL. EOL means not being produced, not being sold. Vishera will continue to be produced and sold throughout 2014 and 2015. AMD said earlier this year that only FM1 and AM3 were being phased out, not AM3+.
> 
> It's just PR speak. AM3+ isn't getting anymore chips.


That AM3+ is not getting any more chips is NOT even the issue. Pryor says that roadmap is a fake. That means what is outlined on it for Carrizo is a fake and can't be given ANY
credibilty. Are you too stubborn to see this???!


----------



## AcEsSalvation

I think the best thing right now is to ignore any 'news' about FX until an official AMD statement


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> I think the best thing right now is to ignore any 'news' about FX until an official AMD statement


I agree with you 100%. Naroon swallowed the bs hook, line, and sinker. That article you referenced clealy states the posted roadmap is a fake. Therefore any projections on it lack credibility. I do think there will probably be no more new designs g
for AM3+, but that in no way legitimizes the Carrizo-Excavator information as far as only DDR3 , no new memory controller, .28 nm like Kaveri. All those conclusions are purely speculative and most likely false in my eyes.
Excavator has been touted by AMD as bringing Major performance improvemnts, perhaps greater than Kaveri. That can Not be achieved with merely improving and expanding instruction sets. That would be considered a minor performance improvement over all. That means it is more likely that Excavator can bring a die shrink. On whose foundry we do not know. It could even possibly be on IBM's high performance .22nm for all we know.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> That AM3+ is not getting any more chips is NOT even the issue. Pryor says that roadmap is a fake. That means what is outlined on it for Carrizo is a fake and can't be given ANY
> credibilty. Are you too stubborn to see this???!


I'm not being stubborn at all. The info on that map isn't being contradicted by any info we already have. Leaks from Summer this year were saying Carrizo would be FM2+ and have 65/45W TDP targets.

Just because Mr. Prior, a PR guy, claims the map is 'fake' only because he never saw it before, doesn't mean much. Don't act all surprised when they do talk about Carrizo and the info on this map is proven 100% correct.
Quote:


> I think the best thing right now is to ignore any 'news' about FX until an official AMD statement


This is the safest way to go.

Carrizo will most likely be 28nm, just not Bulk. They could make the transition to 28nm FD-SOI pretty easily from Bulk.
Quote:


> I agree with you 100%. Naroon swallowed the bs hook, line, and sinker. That article you referenced clealy states the posted roadmap is a fake. Therefore any projections on it lack credibility.


I thought everyone learned from the JF-AMD fiasco not to trust AMD PR guys? Apparently the best time to blindly believe them is when you're hoping what they claim is true. No wonder Bulldozer had such a bad reception.


----------



## heroxoot

I hope we get an official statement soon to steer my decision to buy one of the 9xxx model piledrivers.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Since I remotely viewed all the APU keynotes and over 25 of the breakout sessions on the APU365 website, I am well aware of AMD's public positions. That in no way legitimizes the roamap that people are referring to here that was uploaded some 2 to 2 1/2 weeks ago, not in any way.


It does not, I agree. I'm just pointing out that that is the most up-to-date, official information we have. FX is, given the sheer amount of contradictory information, in limbo as far as I'm concerned. AM3+ and Vishera are sticking around for a while, but successors? We just don't know.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I hope we get an official statement soon to steer my decision to buy one of the 9xxx model piledrivers.


If it isn't much more than an 8350, a 9370 wouldn't be too bad a choice, but even an 8320 will do fine. All Vishera chips should hit 4.5GHz with a bit of effort, two models with zero.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> They could make the transition to 28nm FD-SOI pretty easily from Bulk.


The FD-SOI process only replaces 28nm-SLP, it is assumed Kaveri is on 28nm-HPP. It would be a downgrade to go to the FD-SOI version if Kaveri is 28nm-HPP. There is no High Performance SOI on 28nm but on 20nm there is!


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I hope we get an official statement soon to steer my decision to buy one of the 9xxx model piledrivers.


There is no need for a official statement and we wont get one either because it would hurt sales on AM3+. We already have all the official information we need. Server Roadmap, backed up by desktop roadmap. Vishera last through 2014 while the server market gets a small improvement with Warsaw in Q1 2014 (Piledriver cores from Richland). If Warsaw was going to be brought to AM3+ it would be 2014 as well. Anything past 2014 is going to be very close to EOL of AM3+. There is no replacement for Vishera, FX-9590 is the final chip on AM3+. I'm not saying that in a negative way, there's still great performance to the dollar on this platform. For those that need greater IPC, the options are Kaveri or Intel. If you need better IPC with more threads the only option is Intel. For true PC enthusiast it still stands, with AMD you cant have your cake and eat it to. Simple as that. I think this will change in 2016, It's going to get interesting.


----------



## NaroonGTX

All of that^.

Plus, the map didn't say anything about Carrizo being 28nm, so not sure where people got that from. All it said was DDR3 and 65W TDP, both of which are realistic.

Like I said, it makes sense for them to introduce DDR4 with Basilisk instead. DDR4 will still command a price premium when Carrizo releases in Q1 2015.


----------



## yrettete

So the advancements AMD are making in one year is just a cpu that uses less power ?


----------



## Papadope

It's a stopgap, Steamroller for Servers and FX AM3+ was cancelled for unknown reasons.

Edit:

Unless your talking about Carrizo, Carrizo will likely be more of a improvement than just less power. However, theirs only 2 things that we know of that are supposed to be done with the Excavator core. Use of HDL and fixing the memory performance which currently trails intel pretty dramatically. This may have been updated in Steamroller though based on the 1 or 2 very limited benchmarks we saw of Kaveri.


----------



## yrettete

Can these roadmaps be trusted at all ?

I mean, who saw the 9590 coming ?

They could just release anything last minute.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Can these roadmaps be trusted at all ?
> 
> I mean, who saw the 9590 coming ?
> 
> They could just release anything last minute.


The 9590 is a 8320








(though it is binned)


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Can these roadmaps be trusted at all ?
> 
> I mean, who saw the 9590 coming ?
> 
> They could just release anything last minute.


Well if you go by roadmaps.. it would be 9570 was a stop gap to show what these chips can do..

Warsaw gets pd refresh.. just like richland.. inferring maybe richland like refresh for am3+ would make both the roadmaps true and what amd pr is stating which would make am3+ not dead.

or we get steamroller fx. Hmmm


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Can these roadmaps be trusted at all ?
> 
> I mean, who saw the 9590 coming ?
> 
> They could just release anything last minute.


Details about the 9590 were leaked several months in advance of its initial release.

And I wouldn't put any money on a Steamroller FX. There's no Opteron version with 8 cores, so the likelihood of them making a SR FX just to appease the few who would buy it are pretty slim.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Details about the 9590 were leaked several months in advance of its initial release.
> 
> And I wouldn't put any money on a Steamroller FX. There's no Opteron version with 8 cores, so the likelihood of them making a SR FX just to appease the few who would buy it are pretty slim.


Yeah ... sadly I'm seeing that too still hoping though

To add to the above it was code named centurion, I believe the was a thread about it here on ocn but can always Google too


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> It's a stopgap, Steamroller for Servers and FX AM3+ was cancelled for unknown reasons.
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Unless your talking about Carrizo, Carrizo will likely be more of a improvement than just less power. However, theirs only 2 things that we know of that are supposed to be done with the Excavator core. Use of HDL and fixing the memory performance which currently trails intel pretty dramatically. This may have been updated in Steamroller though based on the 1 or 2 very limited benchmarks we saw of Kaveri.


Excavator was always touted a major performance improvement by AMD and that was not simply referring to performance per watt. So you guys are either all wet abut this or AMD is swallowing crow, According to the logic Naroon and you are using there would absolutely no compelling reason for any consumer to upgrade from Kaveri to Carrizo. Consumers NEVER embrace a cpu on a power savings basis. There has to be a solid performance boost of this apu. I do not see processors successfully marketed as stop gaps or power savers. I will never accept this illogical thinking. I do not see this path as one that will revive AMD. The best step for Carrizo would be to sign a deal with IBM to employ their .22nm high performance process and create a Carrizo that will be an eyestopper with excellent speed , major IPC improvement,major IPS improvement, a larger graphics core, and an option for a six core version. There has been no proof that Kaveri has not adopted HDL as originally planned. No evidence at all. If in fact Kaveri has adopted HDL there is no need to go UHDL in Carrizo. If on the IBM process Carrizo could achieve great performance improvement, power savings, and a possible advanced version with 6 cores. In fact even if this strategy would take an additional quarter to achieve it would better serve AMD's reputation, sales, and competitive standing than what you guys are postulating.


----------



## maarten12100

While we are all bickering here about Steamroller and Excavator the Jaguar cores get a 35% perf increase on the same node using half the power.
Ultra mobile may surpass desktop one day if this trend continues once they shrink this down to 14nm it would consume 1/16 of what jaguar did consume while performing 3x better that is just incredible. (of course my logic is flawed as IC's don't scale that way with die area but the results would still be incredible)

I see myself in a not too distant future with a AMD ultra mobile APU on a laptop with a large 12 cell battery lasting 4 days of full load with it. (just WOW)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Lmao cool your jets. No one here said Carrizo would be a small boost over Kaveri. All we're saying is that the focus seems to be on overall perf/watt, and not insane performance. You forget that both Kaveri and Carrizo have configurable TDP's, and it makes sense for them to try to lower power consumption seeing as how both of these parts will be seen in various mobile products.

And I've never seen any source state that AMD was planning to use HDL in Steamroller. The word has always been that it would arrive in Excavator. Also don't count on any hexacore APU's even with Carrizo.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Lmao cool your jets. No one here said Carrizo would be a small boost over Kaveri. All we're saying is that the focus seems to be on overall perf/watt, and not insane performance. You forget that both Kaveri and Carrizo have configurable TDP's, and it makes sense for them to try to lower power consumption seeing as how both of these parts will be seen in various mobile products.
> 
> And I've never seen any source state that AMD was planning to use HDL in Steamroller. The word has always been that it would arrive in Excavator. Also don't count on any hexacore APU's even with Carrizo.


I just thought about this.. correct me if my logic is wrong. All this hsa, huma, and mantle.. If they decide to stay it 4 cores it would be greater than 8 cores one day. All of that is a push to have developers code multithreading aka the precursor to raw GPU compute. If that happens then they would have > 8 compute cores. This is fully industry change. Amd is not reducing core count but expanding


----------



## agrims

A GPU is great at Parallel compute. CPU's are good at serial compute. There are many programs out there that are serial compute coded and any HSA enabled parts wouldn't get the boost, in turn getting creamed.

The good news is a ton of developers seem to be embracing HSA and Mantle. (Yayyy!)

I believe that there will be a performance part on FM2+. The Fatality board tells me there will be. Gigabyte, ASRock, and probably MSI/ASUS wouldn't be making their creme del la creme boards for a crap CPU, plain and simple. Put me in for a fatality when it drops!


----------



## Sand3853

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> A GPU is great at Parallel compute. CPU's are good at serial compute. There are many programs out there that are serial compute coded and any HSA enabled parts wouldn't get the boost, in turn getting creamed.
> 
> The good news is a ton of developers seem to be embracing HSA and Mantle. (Yayyy!)
> 
> I believe that there will be a performance part on FM2+. The Fatality board tells me there will be. Gigabyte, ASRock, and probably MSI/ASUS wouldn't be making their creme del la creme boards for a crap CPU, plain and simple. Put me in for a fatality when it drops!


This has been my thought,.. I thought it a bit weird that Gigabyte and Asrock would release some of their higher end boards for FM2+ if the only cpu to put in it was an APU (even if it is a superb performer)...many o the features, I.e. PCIE 3.0 and crossfire support also didn't seem to jive with what can be considered a low to medium performance part. Maybe I'm being hopeful, but I have to suspect that AMD might have something up their sleeve and yet to be announced for FM2+....

Of course it could all just be clever marketing to get people to buy into the upcoming kaveri/steamroller chips by releasing massively disproportionate motherboards to cpu performance in hopes that the fact that upper end boards exist for this platform leads people to believe that a truly upper end chip is soon to follow...


----------



## sdlvx

From a marketing standpoint, you guys are absolutely aware that if AMD were to announce anything new for HEDT, that it would cripple their sales because people would want to wait? And that they all have images of reviews with Skyrim, Shogun 2, and Starcraft 2 in their heads?

It would be taking their console wins and getting game developers to go MOAR COARS and throwing them away as FX has horrible image right now and it'd just push people to Intel?

I'm not saying that's 100% what they're doing, but it's rather obvious that Steamroller did not go as intended by the B version and the "delays" (I use this term loosely because AMD never formally declared when SR would be out other than a yearly time frame, but it's been rather normal to expect new CPUs in the fall from AMD).

Just imagine, AM3+ is way long in the tooth. It's obvious to everyone that there's not going to be another CPU that comes out on it. With PCIe 2.0 and the other features the chipset is lacking (like even having enough bandwidth to feed PCIe 3.0 slots in common configurations), it needs to be replaced.

Now just imagine, if something shows up on that roadmap, what would happen to FX sales for the next year or so until (if AMD was still going to) released new chips? They'd be abysmal. But now you have these roadmaps showing up where it looks like "oh gee AMD is in all the new consoles, games are being optimized for 8 core AMDs, and Vishera is going to be around for a long time, it's a really good investment and I'll have a high end gaming PC until the end of 2015!"

Announcing a new platform this early on would destroy AMD's CPU lineup beyond APUs. I'm putting forth the radical idea that these roadmaps look the way they do because it's going to be at least a year before AMD sorts out what went wrong with SR (by either coming out with a different SR version and letting HEDT lag by a year) or by pushing EX onto HEDT.

Really, it would just take one rumor of "AMD is releasing a new platform next year that's going to fix everything wrong with Vishera" and no one would buy Vishera anymore.

But definitely, it's too late to do anything with AM3+. The borderline for pushing the life of AM3+ by releasing a new product was this October.

_I wonder what things would be looking like if Kaveri was on SOI instead of bulk and there was no SRB core because SRA worked fine._


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> I believe that there will be a performance part on FM2+. The Fatality board tells me there will be. Gigabyte, ASRock, and probably MSI/ASUS wouldn't be making their creme del la creme boards for a crap CPU, plain and simple. Put me in for a fatality when it drops!


It's funny, because a month ago I literally thought "I wish we had a fatal1ty board for FM2+" and now look! I'm def. gonna get one of those.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

What are you doing up at 3:45 in the morning? Do you hate sleep?







I find it more exciting that we're getting not-awfulFM2+ motherboards. MSI almost won an award for one of their FM2 motherboards, not because of outstanding features or anything, but because it worked reliably. When I buy things, that kind of what I expect them to do. I'm thinking about getting a Kaveri laptop if Carrizo is going to be DDR3 still. Any performance gains will be negligible at best (hi Intel!) and the iGPU will still be bottlenecked. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get hexacores, but certainly not in the mobile market. Just give me an A10-7850m and R7 260Xm, please and thank you OEMs. No Windows 8 or touchscreens or you might find your house burnt down and a bag of lemons nearby. (Sorry, I replayed Portal 2 and it's still hilarious)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Cave Johnson was legendary. And who needs sleep anyway, it's overrated!







Except me, since I should've been asleep ages ago, lol. Off I go!


----------



## agrims

I have no life.... No but seriously, I'm stationed in Bahrain, and I just had my first kid 5 weeks ago. Life is great. As if the loud prayers 5-6 times daily wasn't enough to wake a man at 430.... Still waiting for that Fatality, or to see if MSI or others will follow suit and produce a gaming series mobo! Honestly, AMD was at one time king of the roost, and they def. could have a winning combo with Mantle and HSA/HUMA. They are thinking outside the box, not to mention the fact that there are murmurs of the R9 series cards being able to be crossfired for an iGPU compute and dGPU graphics, that would be... How do I say this... XXXies!!!!!

Side note, I have a lot of faith in MSI in the FM2 platform. I am running my A85X-G65 mobo into the dirt with my sig rig. It takes a lot of abuse and keeps right on going. Won't set a record or nothing, but 4.5GHz on a Athlon 750K ain't bad 'tall. Not to mention my 8gbs of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz ram that isn't supposed to OC, OC's easily to 2040MHz.

Side Side note... Looking at either the R9 290 or R9 280X or R9 270X. Don't know if I should break off the $399 for the 290, as that is over half my build's price, but then again, it is less than $100 price difference between the 280X and the 290, for a crap load more perf..

Triple side note...... Anyone see the NZXT G10 GPU water cooler base plate? it is $30, comes with a fan for the hot stuff, and can fit almost any AIO cooler to the card. And it works on the R9 series cards.. The review on legit is an eye opener. no extra perf. on an R9 290, but the card runs tops at 44C, and the card runs 40+ watts more efficient than the ref. cooler!


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> I have no life.... No but seriously, I'm stationed in Bahrain, and I just had my first kid 5 weeks ago. Life is great. As if the loud prayers 5-6 times daily wasn't enough to wake a man at 430.... Still waiting for that Fatality, or to see if MSI or others will follow suit and produce a gaming series mobo! Honestly, AMD was at one time king of the roost, and they def. could have a winning combo with Mantle and HSA/HUMA. They are thinking outside the box, not to mention the fact that there are murmurs of the R9 series cards being able to be crossfired for an iGPU compute and dGPU graphics, that would be... How do I say this... XXXies!!!!!
> 
> Side note, I have a lot of faith in MSI in the FM2 platform. I am running my A85X-G65 mobo into the dirt with my sig rig. It takes a lot of abuse and keeps right on going. Won't set a record or nothing, but 4.5GHz on a Athlon 750K ain't bad 'tall. Not to mention my 8gbs of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz ram that isn't supposed to OC, OC's easily to 2040MHz.
> 
> Side Side note... Looking at either the R9 290 or R9 280X or R9 270X. Don't know if I should break off the $399 for the 290, as that is over half my build's price, but then again, it is less than $100 price difference between the 280X and the 290, for a crap load more perf..
> 
> Triple side note...... Anyone see the NZXT G10 GPU water cooler base plate? it is $30, comes with a fan for the hot stuff, and can fit almost any AIO cooler to the card. And it works on the R9 series cards.. The review on legit is an eye opener. no extra perf. on an R9 290, but the card runs tops at 44C, *and the card runs 40+ watts more efficient than the ref. cooler!*


I've been saying this since the Hawaii card launch yet everybody is like yeah so much power and much heat while that actually is not true since the cooler is just bad.


----------



## yrettete

What if they have some kind of technological breakthrough that changes everything ?

Will they abandon the roadmap ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What if they have some kind of technological breakthrough that changes everything ?
> 
> Will they abandon the roadmap ?


What if quantum computing is realized and ready for mass production in 2016

In other words who knows and I doubt it at least for now


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What if they have some kind of technological breakthrough that changes everything ?
> 
> Will they abandon the roadmap ?


Architectural breakthroughs really almost never happens too many people working on architectures to oversee something that would be a game changing difference.
With all x86 architectures no longer being x86 internally but rather doing a conversion for in and out there is only so much you can improve on a node with a architecture and I think Intel has hit that wall pretty much and I don't doubt AMD will also hit that wall.

That is why both are looking into different architectures to get rid of x86 or to accelerated x86 as it is essentially super inefficient whereas we should've adopted something like the Motorola arch early on as it was so much better than x86.
Risc(ARM), Mips and Power PC(IBM's love child it is arguably the best architecture on the planet) are among the alternatives if one was to totally abandon x86 (nobody will their IP is worth too much and they would have heavy competition also they would have to buy licenses for either of those)


Spoiler: where it went down



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_68000


----------



## Demonkev666

Vishera is there from 2014-2015, cause they don't want a another $450+ million charge form GF for canceling another contract.


----------



## yrettete

What is wrong with x86 ?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What if they have some kind of technological breakthrough that changes everything ?
> 
> Will they abandon the roadmap ?


AMD's technological problem with an HEDT platform with dCPU and dGPU isn't performance of the CPU or GPU right now. It's that there's (currently) not a good way to get the GPU to access main memory at a reasonable amount of bandwidth. The best slot we have for HEDT is PCIe 3.0 x16 right now which is good for 15GB/s (theoretical). DDR3 2133 gets around 17GB/s bandwidth, but it's already a big bottleneck. Adding PCIe 3.0 into the equation just adds yet another bottleneck. A bottleneck that doesn't need to exist as APU is free of it. When DDR4 shows up PCIe 3.0 will be a huge problem. PCIe 4.0 is only going to (roughly) double PCIe 3.0 bandwidth to 31GB/s.

To realize a serious HEDT platform for gaming PCs and worstations (and HPC as well), AMD needs to fix the bandwidth problem first.

There are some things that show potential but overall nothing concrete is here.

On another note, I found this in the bowels of the internet (so take it with a grain of salt) 

Here's Richland CB15 scors on HWBOT
http://hwbot.org/benchmark/cinebench_r15/rankings?hardwareTypeId=processor_2826#start=0#interval=20

Not sure if it's been posted anywhere or not. I just woke up and found this on my phone in bed and came over here to share. Haven't made my rounds to industry news section yet.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> A GPU is great at Parallel compute. CPU's are good at serial compute. There are many programs out there that are serial compute coded and any HSA enabled parts wouldn't get the boost, in turn getting creamed.
> 
> The good news is a ton of developers seem to be embracing HSA and Mantle. (Yayyy!)
> 
> I believe that there will be a performance part on FM2+. The Fatality board tells me there will be. Gigabyte, ASRock, and probably MSI/ASUS wouldn't be making their creme del la creme boards for a crap CPU, plain and simple. Put me in for a fatality when it drops!


But you are so wrong the motherboards for Kaveri are not any creme de la creme. There is no Asus or Gigabyte board for Kaveri that remotely resembles a Crosshairs V Formula Z or even a Sabertooth 990 FX as far as feature set. They are very low-lower-mid quality boards. I have looked at the specs for all of them.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Why isn't A88X supporting quad-channel RAM? Is that a Kaveri thing or a chipset thing? Somewhat disappointed to see only sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes available and from the looks of it just eight 2.0 lanes.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Why isn't A88X supporting quad-channel RAM? Is that a Kaveri thing or a chipset thing? Somewhat disappointed to see only sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes available and from the looks of it just eight 2.0 lanes.


APU chips are made with mobile in mind, first and foremost. Laptops with 4 RAM modules, doesn't sound feasible.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Wikipedia says that only Xeons, Opterons, and i7 Extremes (i.e. consumer Xeons) support tri and quad. Kind of unfortunate, that could alleviate some need for DDR4. More and more ultrabooks have components soldered to the motherboard, so space isn't necessarily an issue. And of course, you have people like me who want an awesome laptop/brick/improvised melee weapon, back problems be damned.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> APU chips are made with mobile in mind, first and foremost. Laptops with 4 RAM modules, doesn't sound feasible.


That is illogical Kaveri is NOT a mobie chip and therefore what you say is bogus.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is illogical Kaveri is NOT a mobie chip and therefore what you say is bogus.


He ment that AMD might not want to make different kinds of silicon for either market thus keeping a dual channel memory interface for both pieces of silicon rather than buffing up the memory interface on the desktop chips.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is illogical Kaveri is NOT a mobie chip and therefore what you say is bogus.
> 
> 
> 
> He ment that AMD might not want to make different kinds of silicon for either market thus keeping a dual channel memory interface for both pieces of silicon rather than buffing up the memory interface on the desktop chips.
Click to expand...

^this
It would provide for better yields and less worries about producing multiple chips, reason being is that AMD is still hurting and has to cut cost somewhere.. With that said a 1 type of silicon to appease the masses grants more income than 2 chips 1 for enthusiasts when the desktop APU market is notoriously known for not being an enthusiast brand


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is illogical Kaveri is NOT a mobie chip and therefore what you say is bogus.


Kaveri will be in mobile products, how is it not a mobile chip?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> That is illogical Kaveri is NOT a mobie chip and therefore what you say is bogus.


AMD APU's just like intel mainstream chips (from celeron/pentium all the way to quad i7) are designed to be used in laptops first and foremost since this is their biggest and most important market. They come from the same production line essentially, with focus being mobile mostly and desktop as an afterthought. Quad channel has currently no place in the mobile space, therefore it is unavailable on desktop. It can be done but neither intel nor AMD will go out of their way the slightest bit and modify their designs in order to include something for desktop alone.


----------



## yrettete

AMD and Intel should combine to start making really excellent CPU chips.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Hmm... We need SO-SO-DIMM RAM. Actually, that would be feasible considering the data density solid state memory has achieved. Check out the new mSATA 840 EVO: it has only four NAND modules and each hold 256GB. The MSRP remains unchanged from $650.

EDIT:

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> AMD and Intel should combine to start making really excellent CPU chips.


Okay, i hate to sound condescending, but that is one of the worst things that could possibly happen. In a perfect world, they'd sell their products at a fair price with the combined skill of AMD's and Intel's engineers. In reality, we'd see a stupidly high-priced monopoly on x86-64 CPUs and the market would more-or-less stagnate. The only competition would be themselves and they would set the prices.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> AMD and Intel should combine to start making really excellent CPU chips.


Would this not cause a monopoly in 1 or more markets?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> He ment that AMD might not want to make different kinds of silicon for either market thus keeping a dual channel memory interface for both pieces of silicon rather than buffing up the memory interface on the desktop chips.


Few laptops take 4 memory modules. Laptop memory limitations should not dictate designs for desktop chips Decision is penny wise and pound foolish.

According to your logic we will still have dual channel crap all the way through. Carrizo as I do not see laptops adapting a 4 module design in most cases. This is pathetic . I am having my fill of never ending ******ation of advancement of memory bandwidth. Even with ddr4 if only limited to dual channel it will have significantly impaired bandwidth potential.
I always had significantly better performance on my desktop and was willing to pay for it. What you are saying is we will have continued crap performance with a possible saving grace of hsa. I am being turned of incrementally by each of these regressions. Do you think it reasonable to be frozen in place by waiting until 2016. I f your thinking is accurate there is absolutely no reason to believe that in 2016 ut will be significantly different. These decisions seem to be dictated by AMD limited finances more than the needs of their customers.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Few laptops take 4 memory modules. Laptop memory limitations should not dictate designs for desktop chips Decision is penny wise and pound foolish.


While I agree and I would've loved more bandwidth in whatever way for Kaveri I also see why it isn't feasible from a business point of view for AMD.

Same goes for Intel chips actually only the "extreme" and xeon have the arch largely modified to fit rather than have a completely new layout specifically for desktop. (Intel has the money but knows people will buy while AMD does have the money but has better use for it)

Just the way it has always been which is sad enough for the pro-sumers.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> AMD APU's just like intel mainstream chips (from celeron/pentium all the way to quad i7) are designed to be used in laptops first and foremost since this is their biggest and most important market. They come from the same production line essentially, with focus being mobile mostly and desktop as an afterthought. Quad channel has currently no place in the mobile space, therefore it is unavailable on desktop. It can be done but neither intel nor AMD will go out of their way the slightest bit and modify their designs in order to include something for desktop alone.


Intel has some quad memory desktop designs so you are selecting your facts to make a skewed conclusion.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Intel has some quad memory desktop designs so you are selecting your facts to make a skewed conclusion.


Come again? Those are their extreme designs and they are related to their server chips, the Xeon line. Just like FX line is related to Opterons. Neither intel-E nor FX are designed to be laptop compatible. APU and intel mainstream are.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Kaveri will be in mobile products, how is it not a mobile chip?


Beema is the mobile chip, not Kaveri, or has your memory failed you?


----------



## yrettete

The End Of Silicon Chips

Number 7

http://listverse.com/2013/12/15/10-profound-ways-the-world-will-change-in-your-lifetime/


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> While I agree and I would've loved more bandwidth in whatever way for Kaveri I also see why it isn't feasible from a business point of view for AMD.
> 
> Same goes for Intel chips actually only the "extreme" and xeon have the arch largely modified to fit rather than have a completely new layout specifically for desktop. (Intel has the money but knows people will buy while AMD does have the money but has better use for it)
> 
> Just the way it has always been which is sad enough for the pro-sumers.


It is not fixed in stone that it will stay this way. I will be happy if. both AMD and Intel croak and a non x86 solution storms the desktop world. I could see both Samsung and ARM developing beefed up versions of ther mobile products in a couple of years and give these lazy twins a run for our money. As android apps become more. advanced and complex they may well offer a viable aternative to productivty apps like Microsoft Office and the like. If that ever happens I will jump on board and never look back. My tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, has a 64-bit quad core Eynos processor running at 1.9 GHZ. With 3GB of memory and AC wireless capability it is faster than any tablet I have ever seen.I can see a 2 year evolution in whch this technology will be on the same level of our stagnating desktop offerings.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> The End Of Silicon Chips
> 
> Number 7
> 
> http://listverse.com/2013/12/15/10-profound-ways-the-world-will-change-in-your-lifetime/


Yes I have been aware of IBM's work on carbon nanotubes since three years ago. IBM is also researchng using light technology to replace mass storage and move data 100 times faster tha the fastest ssds do right now.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

And none of it will come to market before we start to kick the bucket...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> It is not fixed in stone that it willstay this way. I will be happy if. both AMD and Intel croak and a non x86 solution storms the desktop world. I could see Samsung and ARM developing beefed up versions of ther mobile products in a couple of years and give these lazy twins a run for our money. As android apps become more. advanced and complex they may well offer a viable aternative to productivty apps like Mirosoft Office and the like. If that ever happens I will jump on board and never look back. My tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, has a 64-bit quad core Eynos processor running at 1.9 GHZ. With 3GB of memory and AC wireless capability it is faster than any tablet I have ever seen.I can see a 2 year evolution in whch this technology will be on the same level of our stagnating desktop offerings.


Yeah Risc is a great architecture though I would love to see PowerPC make a comeback in the desktop though the chance is pretty much nil.

Was reminded today of our old IBM Personal System/2 since we still have the box to store parts of our synthetic Christmas tree.
As for more recent PowerPC based products I still have a powermac G5 dual 2.0 standing here somewhere and used to have some G3's and G4's too


----------



## rabidz7

If this is a PowerPC, I will get it. No questions asked. But it won't be.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Beema is the mobile chip, not Kaveri, or has your memory failed you?


Your condescending attitude is funny seeing as how it's already been explained to you.

Kaveri, much like Intel's Core i chips, are designed mainly for mobile uses, desktop gets leftovers and such to satisfy market demands. Why else do you think the i3-i7's have iGPU's in them?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

AMD is focusing on mobile markets. That's where the cashy-money is. Enterprise? Nope. Desktops? Niche.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> AMD is focusing on mobile markets. That's where the cashy-money is. Enterprise? Nope. Desktops? Niche.


Was not speculating about it being PowerPC just saying Risc and PowerPC are nice architectures that would've been much better than x86. Actually x86 was the cheapest of the bunch and that was why it was chosen by Intel. Intel won in the early days by the higher clock speed they could achieve over PowerPC while the PowerPC architecture was a lot better.

Either way those days are long gone for the normal consumer.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Yeah Risc is a great architecture though I would love to see PowerPC make a comeback in the desktop though the chance is pretty much nil.
> 
> Was reminded today of our old IBM Personal System/2 since we still have the box to store parts of our synthetic Christmas tree.
> As for more recent PowerPC based products I still have a powermac G5 dual 2.0 standing here somewhere and used to have some G3's and G4's too


As you may have figured out by my user name. I was using os/2 on my desktop for about 5 years. I was even a member of the IBM OS/2 Users group for about 3 years. We met at
590 Madison Ave. , IBM headquarters. it was the most stable operating system, I ever used and the object-oriented Work Place Shell had the best gui I have ever seen on any operating system. It is too bad they didn't have a consumer oriented marketing and development team as it could have kicked MS sorry ass. The installation problems were due to the abundance of poor quality system boards and expansion cards back then that were not within the tolerance level required to run a true mutitasking operating system.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes I have been aware of IBM's work on carbon nanotubes since three years ago. IBM is also researchng using light technology to replace mass storage and move data 100 times faster tha the fastest ssds do right now.


Is this anything to do with graphene ?

Or something brand new ?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Your condescending attitude is funny seeing as how it's already been explained to you.
> 
> Kaveri, much like Intel's Core i chips, are designed mainly for mobile uses, desktop gets leftovers and such to satisfy market demands. Why else do you think the i3-i7's have iGPU's in them?


It's not condescension, it's impatience wth your loose, imprecise use of language. Sorry but Kaveri is not for mobile use. It may be a derivative of a unidesign to incorporate one and all, but you will not find one Kaveri chip in any mobile device, unless you consider a desktop case with a handle for lan parties mobile. Language loses meaning when you blur the boundaries of a discreet entity. Be precise and focused in how you present a point of view and I won't have a problem with what you say.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Is this anything to do with graphene ?
> 
> Or something brand new ?


Yes I believe that is the name for the substance they are employing for the futuristic replacement for silicon.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes I have been aware of IBM's work on carbon nanotubes since three years ago. IBM is also researchng using light technology to replace mass storage and move data 100 times faster tha the fastest ssds do right now.
> 
> 
> 
> Is this anything to do with graphene ?
> 
> Or something brand new ?
Click to expand...

IBM is working on lots of fun things right now, like using infiniband for a system bus. One that would run around 100GB/s and provide ample bandwidth for a system which required fast transfer of data between CPU, GPU, and system memory.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> It's not condescension, it's impatience wth your loose, imprecise use of language. Sorry but Kaveri is not for mobile use. It may be a derivative of a unidesign to incorporate one and all, but you will not find one Kaveri chip in any mobile device, unless you consider a desktop case with a handle for lan parties mobile. Language loses meaning when you blur the boundaries of a discreet entity. Be precise and focused in how you present a point of view and I won't have a problem with what you say.


This is just... lolwat.

There were tons of laptops that had Trinity and Richland chips in them. You are honestly gonna sit here and try to convince me the same won't happen with Kaveri? Get real.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> This is just... lolwat.
> 
> There were tons of laptops that had Trinity and Richland chips in them. You are honestly gonna sit here and try to convince me the same won't happen with Kaveri? Get real.


They had Kabini and its predecessor. You fail to realize the mobile versions of Vishera and Steamroller have different code names than the desktop chips, different die sizes , different power requirements and different frequencies. I really don't understand your refusal to acknowledge what is quite clear. You are a bright guy.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> They had Kabini and its predecessor. You fail to realize the mobile versions of Vishera and Steamroller have different code names than the desktop chips, different die sizes , different power requirements and different frequencies. I really don't understand your refusal to acknowledge what is quite clear. You are a bright guy.


??

Kaveri Mobile and Desktop will be the exact same die - as was done with Richland/Trinity before it.


----------



## Seronx

Desktop Enthusiast : Zambezi -> Vishera
Desktop Mainstream: Trinity -> Richland -> Kaveri
Mobile Mainstream: Trinity -> Richland -> Kaveri2.0
Essential: Zacate -> Kabini -> Beema


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> On another note, I found this *in the bowels of the internet* (so take it with a grain of salt)
> 
> 
> 
> Here's Richland CB15 scors on HWBOT
> http://hwbot.org/benchmark/cinebench_r15/rankings?hardwareTypeId=processor_2826#start=0#interval=20
> 
> Not sure if it's been posted anywhere or not. I just woke up and found this on my phone in bed and came over here to share. Haven't made my rounds to industry news section yet.


Sounds like /g/ to me....


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, it came from 4chan. It was called out as fake over there, apparently.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> ??
> 
> Kaveri Mobile and Desktop will be the exact same die - as was done with Richland/Trinity before it.


OK I will concede I assumed the die size was different. Nobody is using the 95 watt Desktp Kaveri in a laptop. It would defeat the power saving benefit of Beema chips. Also the laptop motherboard probably is not designed for 95 watt tdp. I am technically correct. I have not seen AMD in its literature refer to Beema as Kaveri, though they share a common design.. Kaveri is released January 7. Beema is released sometime in March. iIf you two guys want to refer to both chips as one and the same because of common design be my guest but it is incorrect nomenclature.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Laptop kaveri chips will be clocked significantly lower, naturally requiring less voltage to run, have lower TDP, run cooler etc. Otherwise they are the same thing with desktop kaveri chips.


----------



## yuri69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> OK will concde I assumed the die size was different. Nobody is usig the 95 watt Desktp Kaveri in a laptop. It would defeat the power saving benefit of Beema chips. Also the laptop motherboard probably is not designed for 95 watt tdp. I am technically correct.


Have u ever noticed there has always been a subprocess called binning? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning

The mask used in the lithography process is the same - Llano vX, Trinity vY, Richland vZ, etc. Thus the final product is the same except for binning.

I'll kindly provide an example - the products from the same Trinity TN-A1 line are ranging from 17W [email protected] up to 100W [email protected]
It has been binned from really small mobile form factors with 17W TDP design up to 100W desktop/ws segment.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Trinity.html

So... in conclusion, is Kaveri gonna be a mobile or desktop chip? Neither, it's gonna be both like its predecessors! However, mobile is the key segment nowadays since more units are being sold there (last time I checked that it was Trinity's 2.5M vs 1.5M units).


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Laptop kaveri chips will be clocked significantly lower, naturally requiring less voltage to run, have lower TDP, run cooler etc. Otherwise they are the same thing with desktop kaveri chips.


Kaveri is not an all inclusive name for Both iterations of desktop and mobile. AMD differentiated desktop as kaveri and mobile as kabini, beema etc. It is incorrect to use the desktop specific name Kaveri for both whether in fact they are exactly the same chip or not. . If you desire a common name call them steamroller.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yuri69*
> 
> Have u ever noticed there has always been a subprocess called binning? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
> 
> The mask used in the lithography process is the same - Llano vX, Trinity vY, Richland vZ, etc. Thus the final product is the same except for binning.
> 
> I'll kindly provide an example - the products from the same Trinity TN-A1 line are ranging from 17W [email protected] up to 100W [email protected]
> It has been binned from really small mobile form factors with 17W TDP design up to 100W desktop/ws segment.
> http://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Trinity.html
> 
> So... in conclusion, is Kaveri gonna be a mobile or desktop chip? Neither, it's gonna be both like its predecessors! However, mobile is the key segment nowadays since more units are being sold there (last time I checked that it was Trinity's 2.5M vs 1.5M units).


It is not even relevant to the point I am making. My name is Ira. If I had a twin named Bob would I want to be called Bob or Ira? The answer is obvious.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Laptop kaveri chips will be clocked significantly lower, naturally requiring less voltage to run, have lower TDP, run cooler etc. Otherwise they are the same thing with desktop kaveri chips.


Never disputed that. But they do have different names. Mobile> Beema Desktop> Kaveri.


----------



## yuri69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Kaveri is not an all inclusive name for Both iterations of desktop and mobile. AMD differentiated desktop as kaveri and mobile as kabini, beema etc. It is incorrect to use the desktop specific name Kaveri for both whether in fact they are exactly the same chip or not. . If you desire a common name call them steamroller.


Maybe you need a reality check.

http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/11/amd_2013_mobility_roadmap-100068083-orig.png

This mobile roadmap comes directly from Papermaster's APU13 keynote.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yuri69*
> 
> Maybe you need a reality check.
> 
> http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/11/amd_2013_mobility_roadmap-100068083-orig.png
> 
> This mobile roadmap comes directly from Papermaster's APU13 keynote.


Show me the laptops with Richland piledriver cores, show me in 3 months laptops that have steamroller rather than puma cores.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Never disputed that. But they do have different names. Mobile> Beema Desktop> Kaveri.


It doesn't work like that. Kabini is an APU based on little core (cat family, jaguar for Kabini), specifically the type that goes into netbooks and products around that power envelope, for tablets little core products are called "temash". Beema is simply Kabini's successor, based on Puma cores, rather than Jaguar.It's tablet sibling will be called "mullins". These are still little core products, of course. Kaveri on the other hand, is a codename for big core (steamroller based) APU chips that go both in desktops and laptops. Just like Trinity/Richland where APU based on Piledriver.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231422 <- Trinity PD laptop
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312829 <- Richland PD laptop

Zambezi was the codename for desktop FX bulldozers and Vishera for desktop FX piledrivers. These two didn't go into laptops since they were sibling dies to server Opteron chips. If you are dissapointed for the apparent lack of a Vishera successor (FX Steamroller) and the more than obvious focus of AMD on little core ,I feel for you and I am very worried that excavator will be the last big core x86 arch for AMD.


----------



## yuri69

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Show me the laptops with Richland piledriver cores.


At your command!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834257761
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834198033
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152442
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314273
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834257807
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216674
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314182
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834257672

...then I got bored.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> It doesn't work like that. Kabini is an APU based on little core (cat family, jaguar for Kabini), specifically the type that goes into netbooks and products around that power envelope, for tablets little core products are called "temash". Beema is simply Kabini's successor, based on Puma cores, rather than Jaguar.It's tablet sibling will be called "mullins". These are still little core products, of course. Kaveri on the other hand, is a codename for big core (steamroller based) APU chips that go both in desktops and laptops. Just like Trinity/Richland where APU based on Piledriver.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231422 <- Trinity PD laptop
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312829 <- Richland PD laptop
> 
> Zambezi was the codename for desktop FX bulldozers and Vishera for desktop FX piledrivers. These two didn't go into laptops since they were sibling dies to server Opteron chips. If you are dissapointed for the apparent lack of a Vishera successor (FX Steamroller) and the more than obvious focus of AMD on little core ,I feel for you and I am very worried that excavator will be the last big core x86 arch for AMD.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yuri69*
> 
> Maybe you need a reality check.
> 
> http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/11/amd_2013_mobility_roadmap-100068083-orig.png
> 
> This mobile roadmap comes directly from Papermaster's APU13 keynote
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> I ask everyone to forgive me for a mental block I had. For some reason I have always assumed laptops are mobile devices and therefore when AMD states mobile chips are released two months later than Kaveri, that is when the laptop chips are released. I have to say that AMDs failure to make that difference clear in their roadmaps led to this misconception on my part. Sorry to have wasted all this thread space tilting windmills.
> I am quite embarrassed I did not pick up on this earlier.
Click to expand...


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> OK I will concede I assumed the die size was different. Nobody is using the 95 watt Desktp Kaveri in a laptop. It would defeat the power saving benefit of Beema chips. Also the laptop motherboard probably is not designed for 95 watt tdp. I am technically correct. I have not seen AMD in its literature refer to Beema as Kaveri, though they share a common design.. Kaveri is released January 7. Beema is released sometime in March. iIf you two guys want to refer to both chips as one and the same because of common design be my guest but it is incorrect nomenclature.


And they wont. That 95w model is for the higher end desktop versions that are closer to the 4GHz range of speed. The mobile designs will be the same core die but will be binned differently and run at much lower speeds. The Orochi architecture (Bulldozer, Piledriver, and soon to be Steamroller) are actually VERY good designs in frequency efficiency up until a certain point. That point is around the 4GHz area, as you go down in frequency you get exponentially less wattage draw, to the point where even old Trinity could run at 20w max draw with 4 cores and a GPU running when the cores were around 2GHz. Richland was even better at power consumption, and with the die shrink I expect Kaveri to be even better still. It is easily feasible that we *could* see a mobile grade Kaveri based processor running 2.5~ GHz and only drawing 20-25w. That is still a little more than I would like in a laptop for power draw, but it is around average. That is actually how much power draw the top end Kabini has right now.

Although, Kaveri is not the same core design as Beema as you seem to be saying, just as Richland is not the same core design as Kabini. Beema uses modified (upgraded) Jaguar cores, which are massively different than Steamroller cores. See source for info:

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Anandtech*
> First and foremost, these are actually new cores as opposed to mere tweaks of existing designs. Temash and Kabini used "Jaguar" cores, built on a 28nm process node; Mullins and Beema will also use 28nm technology, with "Puma" cores, but along with improvements to the design to reduce the power use, AMD is also incorporating an ARM Cortex-A5 core with TrustZone technology to help with security. Here's the quick overview of the current and roadmap:
> 
> AMD hasn't disclosed how much the underlying architecture has changed, and I would guess the Puma cores are actually quite similar to Jaguar cores, but the net result is a 2X improvement in performance per Watt according to AMD.


----------



## BigTree

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Sounds like /g/ to me....


It made it in the news of wccftech.
http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-a107850k-benchmark-surfaced/


----------



## MrJava

I expected nothing less from that site.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *BigTree*
> 
> It made it in the news of wccftech.
> http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-a107850k-benchmark-surfaced/


----------



## Kuivamaa

Wccf is even worse than fudzilla, nuff said.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Wow, does wccf just have moles planted on every tech site? I don't think anyone should trust anything that comes from 4chan of all places.


----------



## Demonkev666

richland 6800K at 4.8ghz is only scoring 376....


----------



## timaishu

Any more actual news on steamroller? At this point Im convinced its never going to come out.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller is inside Kaveri and that is coming out in January.

If you're thinking about Steamroller FX, no, that doesn't exist anymore.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> If you're thinking about Steamroller FX, no, that doesn't exist anymore.


The new Piledriver and Steamroller FX won't be announced till one month before paper launch. This is to maximize AM3+ sells before it goes into EOL in Q3 2015.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The new Piledriver and Steamroller FX won't be announced till one month before paper launch. This is to maximize AM3+ sells before it goes into EOL in Q3 2015.


Not to sound crass but, could you provide a source please? That's a bold statement that I would love to see come to fruition.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Wccf is even worse than fudzilla, nuff said.


Sometimes they are right but it is not that often a recent example of this was when they reported about the new cooler design on the AMD R7 and R9 series.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Not to sound crass but, could you provide a source please?


If I provide you a source it won't be from AMD. That is how these things work when the Osbourne Effect is heavily maintained.

AMD wants you to buy;
AM3+
FM2+
FS1B

Not to wait for;
GC36(Quad-channel CPU Socket) (G34 + C32, 4+2 -> 6, GC36, C: 35W-95W/G: 85W-220W/36: Implying it is better than G34 and C32)
Unknown(Quad-channel APU Socket)


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The new Piledriver and Steamroller FX won't be announced till one month before paper launch. This is to maximize AM3+ sells before it goes into EOL in Q3 2015.
> 
> 
> 
> Not to sound crass but, could you provide a source please? That's a bold statement that I would love to see come to fruition.
Click to expand...

You should spend some time looking at seronx's previous predictions and seeing where they ended up. It's interesting and it will give you a little more confidence in him.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Wccf is even worse than fudzilla, nuff said.
> 
> 
> 
> Sometimes they are right but it is not that often a recent example of this was when they reported about the new cooler design on the AMD R7 and R9 series.
Click to expand...

Which is why I posted it here, in the hopes that someone would either find a glaring issue with it or that they could confirm it. Instead I got "LOL 4CHAN!" and "I've seen a few shops in muh day and this is clearly photoshoped, I can tell by the pixels!"

It's no surprise that WCCF found it and wrote some attention grabbing headline on his rumor recycler. People hate on 4chan sometimes but they are right sometimes. Remember those posts about how Ryse was a horrible game beyond fixing and MS was pushing it with marketing? And then it was released as a turd? I realize 99% of it is trolling, but releasing legitimate information and having everyone think you're trolling is another form of trolling. One that I'd personally (in a less professional atmosphere than here) would gladly do, because the accusations of fake would make for a good drunken night.

@S|A someone ran some numbers and found that bench had the chip 46% faster IPC than Piledriver. That's a lot more than we expected but then again rendering scales very well with changes to the architecture regarding multi-threading (it's one of the best places for HT to shine while HT can actually hurt performance in other situations).

You guys are free to hate on me for posting it as much as you want, but at least I'm not posting it on my website begging for page hits with some emotional headline.

EDIT: I measured pixels between cinebench on my computer and the image. Everything the "ZOMG PHOTOSHOP" people are complaining about (the large space between 3 and 5, Kaveri model name looking larger) actually lines up with how CBr15 actually is. Font size 8 pixels, two pixel gap between 3 and 5.

The difference is that everything in the supposed fake has a font size of 7 instead of 8. As fottemberg suggested, this actually makes more sense that the Kaveri result is right and it was pasted onto another image that was resized.

Unless anyone has any other suggestions? But the image has been tampered with, it doesn't line up 100% with real cinebench.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Vishera sales will be irrelevant long before Q3 2015.


----------



## NaroonGTX

There will be no Steamroller FX, that image is fake, no quad-channel FM2+ boards coming, etc.

Speculation is one thing, but blatant nonsense like this needs to end. Someone posts a garbage image of a supposed result and then everyone will run around like chickens with their heads cut off talking about how Kaveri will offer a "50% IPC increase" when we know that's ridiculous. People will then be disappointed when real benches come out next month after the NDA is up.


----------



## SandGlass

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> On another note, I found this in the bowels of the internet (so take it with a grain of salt)
> 
> Here's Richland CB15 scors on HWBOT
> http://hwbot.org/benchmark/cinebench_r15/rankings?hardwareTypeId=processor_2826#start=0#interval=20
> 
> Not sure if it's been posted anywhere or not. I just woke up and found this on my phone in bed and came over here to share. Haven't made my rounds to industry news section yet.


For reference: 376 for A10-6800K running at 4.8, so that is quite a boost
Source


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There will be no Steamroller FX, that image is fake, no quad-channel FM2+ boards coming, etc.


There is a Steamroller FX, it just isn't coming out when you want it to. Consumers instead will be able to get a 12-16 core Piledriver FX on a sever platform rigged for Gaming. This platform might or might not be compatible with the Steamroller/Excavator FX parts.

"that image" I assume is the Steamroller module picture which is indefinitely real.

I didn't say FM2+, I was implying that there will be another socket around the Carrizo and Basilisk timeframe with Quad-channel DDR4.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> People will then be disappointed when real benches come out next month after the NDA is up.


Only when people run SuperPi maybe, there should be significant gains in x264/x265, system benches, gaming, etc.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There is a Steamroller FX, it just isn't coming out when you want it to. Consumers instead will be able to get a 12-16 core Piledriver FX on a sever platform rigged for Gaming. This platform might or might not be compatible with the Steamroller/Excavator FX parts.
> 
> "that image" I assume is the Steamroller module picture which is indefinitely real.
> 
> I didn't say FM2+, I was implying that there will be another socket around the Carrizo and Basilisk timeframe with Quad-channel DDR4.
> Only when people run SuperPi maybe, there should be significant gains in x264/x265, system benches, gaming, etc.


Consider me intrigued. Would you say it's worth holding onto my Vishera or would a Kaveri be an upgrade? Considering the immediate future of course and not 2015.


----------



## NaroonGTX

No, even that roadmap shows that there won't be a Steamroller FX. 'That image' was in reference to the Cinebench pic. Also that module shot wasn't Steamroller, I can guarantee you that.









I also seriously doubt any of the other things you just said will come to fruition.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Consider me intrigued. Would you say it's worth holding onto my Vishera or would a Kaveri be an upgrade? Considering the immediate future of course and not 2015.


Hold on to Vishera, unless you have money to spare and no risks to worry about. FX-8350 to A10-7850K, will feel like going from a 4 GHz processor to an 1.85 GHz processor. It would be preferential to wait for 16C FX that will be coming shortly after Warsaw.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> 'That image' was in reference to the Cinebench pic. Also that module shot wasn't Steamroller, I can guarantee you that.


Cinebench can be faked by editing the results file. I'm also pretty sure the A10-7850K is "A10-7850K with R7 2xx(X) graphics" not with Radeon(tm)


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Hold on to Vishera, unless you have money to spare and no risks to worry about. FX-8350 to A10-7850K, will feel like going from a 4 GHz processor to an 1.85 GHz processor. It would be preferential to wait for 16C FX that will be coming shortly after Warsaw.


Thanks for the quick reply. I will sit tight and see how all this works out. Your sources indicate that the 16 core FX will be a new socket?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Your sources indicate that the 16 core FX will be a new socket?


16 core FX for sure will not be on AM3+, if you mean a new socket. The socket it should be on is G34 or GC36.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Cinebench can be faked by editing the results file. *I'm pretty sure the A10-7850K is "A10-7850K with R7 2xx(X) graphics" not with Radeon(tm)*


Indeed. That's one thing that caught my eye and you're the first person to point it out.


----------



## yrettete

So what is the GPU equivalent being used in the 78050k ?


----------



## yrettete

has mantle been released yet ?

The battlefield 4 driver mantle upgrade was supposed to be ready by now


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So what is the GPU equivalent being used in the 7850k ?


The Xbox One's GPU is the closest equivalent to the GPU in A10-7850K.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So what is the GPU equivalent being used in the 78050k ?


Depends on system memory used. I am confident that when you overclock that core and pair it with fast ram (2400Mhz) it will be very near 7750 GDDR5 levels of performance, since Trinity/Richland top iGPUs under these conditions would outscore a 6670 DDR3.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So what is the GPU equivalent being used in the 78050k ?


Radeon HD 7750 DDR3 (DDR3-1600)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> has mantle been released yet ?
> 
> The battlefield 4 driver mantle upgrade was supposed to be ready by now


Mantle hasn't been released yet. They never said when it would be ready except "December 2013".


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Thanks for the quick reply. I will sit tight and see how all this works out. Your sources indicate that the 16 core FX will be a new socket?


16 core "Vishera" will be called "Warsaw" and will be a server CPU, not an FX line processor. It will run at much slower speeds so it is better to get an actual desktop processor unless you need tons of threads. The 16 core variants of any decent speed will also probably be well out of your price range. It also wont be able to OC so dont even bother thinking about getting a lower speed chip and making it run close to 4GHz. Seronx is just throwing out random and confusing information right now because that is what he does. Dont bother being intrigued by the idea because it is a bad idea and wont run nearly as well as current desktop systems from AMD or Intel for gaming. You can already get this type of setup now BTW, if you really cared to see how dumb it would be.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113320
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139575


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So what is the GPU equivalent being used in the 78050k ?


About a 7750 but the real strength lays in hybrid CF and using it for HSA accelerated tasks in the future.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> has mantle been released yet ?
> 
> The battlefield 4 driver mantle upgrade was supposed to be ready by now


They said late December and it is more like mid December now so I'd give it at least till new year. (today was just bug fixes sadly)


----------



## DapperDan795

Well damn.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Well damn.


Don't believe EniGma1987, he can't fathom AMD consolidating AM3+ and C32 platforms into G34/GC36.

The FX models will be cheaper and faster than the Opteron models. The FX models will also be price competitive towards Intel.

The price for the 12/16C FX will be between $300 to $600, no higher and no lower. The brands for the motherboards will be ASRock, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and Biostar.


----------



## DapperDan795

IF this is all true and they release a mobo that isn't ugly as hell I would consider it. I'm obviously knowledge limited here. I just want some new AMD hotness. I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong, I just want what's good for the AMD community and for them to stay in business with competitive products.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The FX models will be cheaper and faster than the Opteron models. The FX models will also be price competitive towards Intel.
> 
> The price for the 12/16C FX will be between $300 to $600, no higher and no lower.


You are talking about FX line processors on a server socket like it is definitely happening. The last time we heard about AMD unifying server and desktop sockets and releasing new FX lines processors was way back when Steamroller was stilling coming as a desktop variant FX processor. Plans change, and the unified socket seems to have gotten pushed back quite far in the timeline since it was already supposed to have happened by now. Yet we still have AM3+, FM2+, G34, and C32. If there were recent talks from AMD about the new unified server/performance desktop socket then maybe I could believe you, but there hasnt been anything on this for a LONG time now from AMD and it is already past the timeline.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> If there were recent talks from AMD about the new unified server/performance desktop socket then maybe I could believe you, but there hasnt been anything on this for a LONG time now from AMD and it is already past the timeline.


You'll hear about it by Q2 2014 while possibly seeing product by late Q3 2014. (±1 or 2 Quarters:Q4 2013 being earliest and Q4 2014 being latest)

Enterprise users first then Enthusiasts second.


----------



## MrJava

Wow, he's actually come up with a semi-plausible idea. One problem however - why not just get the board partners to make better G34 boards aimed at gaming/workstation?

Edit:

There might even be a new socket for Berlin to add to that list.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Yet we still have AM3+, FM2+, G34, and C32.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> One problem however - why not just get the board partners to make better G34 boards aimed at gaming/workstation?


G34 has RAS and ECC and various server requirements defined by Open 3.0. http://server.amd.com/AMDOpenCompute

While, GC36 does not have RAS or ECC or any thing aimed for servers, it is pure speed and power. In reality, it is the same socket but for marketing they can market G34 to server/enterprise while for GC36 they can aim at Enthusiasts.

G34 = Efficient, Error-correction, Low Power, etc
GC36 = Fast, Speed, High Power, High Performance
Both LGA1974.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> There might even be a new socket for Berlin to add to that list.


Berlin should be FM2+ with RAS and ECC functionality.

---
The sockets for enthusiasts/gamers:
GC36
FM2+

The sockets for essentials:
FT3
FS1B

The sockets for servers:
G34


----------



## Kuivamaa

ECC? I am pretty sure that even my bog standard Asus M5A97 evo r2.0 AM3+ board supports ECC. Anyway, I wouldn't mind at all a 16core processor, but it would be a bit pricey I reckon.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> ECC? I am pretty sure that even my bog standard Asus M5A97 evo r2.0 AM3+ board supports ECC. Anyway, I wouldn't mind at all a 16core processor, but it would be a bit pricey I reckon.


I'll make it a little bit better...
G34 = RDIMM and UDIMM support up to 1866? MHz
GC36 = UDIMM with XMP and AMP support.


----------



## maarten12100

ECC is overated and most people in the server space know this firsthand it doesn't decrease failure chances it just ensures that it doesn't make mistakes while it is storing something.
Besides Kuivamaa if Intel can make 12c/24t ivy bridge EP procs for a mere 300 dollar then AMD can certainly do a big die opteron aimed at enthusiasts for that money. Of course a 8 module steamroller would cost more than 300 dollar but it would also instantly put AMD back in the enthusiast market.

It would be a very good thing for us (not perse for them since they don't really care about us as we are the 5%)


----------



## timaishu

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There will be no Steamroller FX, that image is fake, no quad-channel FM2+ boards coming, etc.
> 
> Speculation is one thing, but blatant nonsense like this needs to end. Someone posts a garbage image of a supposed result and then everyone will run around like chickens with their heads cut off talking about how Kaveri will offer a "50% IPC increase" when we know that's ridiculous. People will then be disappointed when real benches come out next month after the NDA is up.


Yeah, I was referring to am3+ FX steamroller. Just curious as when I decided to jump ship to amd, I got a 6350 that was meant as an interim chip until steamroller dropped, but considering I have heard nothing about it, I have doubts it will ever be released. Luckily my 6350 is quite satisfactory that at this point I don't mind keeping it for a few years.


----------



## yrettete

Will Steamroller at least be faster than a 8150. I plan to upgrade.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Will Steamroller at least be faster than a 8150. I plan to upgrade.


It'll be a lot faster in single-threaded. Multi-threaded, 8150 would still probably win if all eight cores are being used heavily.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It'll be a lot faster in single-threaded. Multi-threaded, 8150 would still probably win if all eight cores are being used heavily.


If an application is HSA enabled, the GPU can be used as general cores like the CPU.

FX-8150 advantage of 4 more cores: 65.6 GFlop advantage over CPU only A10-7850K
A10-7850K advantage of 512 more GP²U cores: 612.48 GFlop advantage over CPU only FX-8150.

So, you have two choices:
2x CPU perf for legacy/HSA enabled workloads.
20x Overall perf with HSA enabled workloads.


----------



## imran27

I'm planning an upgrade for my build, just hope this rumor turns true http://wccftech.com/rumor-amd-phenom-iv-x12-170-baeca-25nm-cpu-leaked-features-12-cores-6-ghz-core-clock-am4-socket-compatbility/


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> I'm planning an upgrade for my build, just hope this rumor turns true http://wccftech.com/rumor-amd-phenom-iv-x12-170-baeca-25nm-cpu-leaked-features-12-cores-6-ghz-core-clock-am4-socket-compatbility/


lolno. 25nm is extremely unlikely (they'll probably go 28 -> 20), especially that soon; 12 cores on a desktop chip isn't going to happen until at least Excavator, and 6ghz is ridiculous. Not to mention Phenom being dead (I suppose they could bring back the name, but I doubt even that much){and what happened to Phenom III?}, AM4 being extremely unlikely, etc. And all that at 75W?









Also, no reasonably new instruction sets, like the AVX family or the 'SSE5' family? That pic screams "photoshop'd by someone that has no idea what they're talking about". Or, more likely, joke/troll.


----------



## imran27

That's sad for me, what do the OCNens suggest, I'm building a new machine, AMD. Should I grab CHVZ+8350 or should I wait for some new high-end desktop processor from AMD, it doesn't seem that any new FX or alike is planned for now. I can wait till Q2 or MAX Q3 2014








I built my rig with 8150 and within 3 months there was 8350 which was too much better, I don't want that to happen to me again


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> That's sad for me, what do the OCNens suggest, I'm building a new machine, AMD. Should I grab CHVZ+8350 or should I wait for some new high-end desktop processor from AMD, it doesn't seem that any new FX or alike is planned for now. I can wait till Q2 or MAX Q3 2014
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I built my rig with 8150 and within 3 months there was 8350 which was too much better, I don't want that to happen to me again


From the sound of it, AMD isn't going to make anything bigger than quad-core Kaveri until 2015 (and we don't know when in 2015 Carrizo is going to come out; likely early, but AMD hasn't said anything on the subject). If you can't wait that long, an 8350 or 8320 and a good cooler probably wouldn't be a bad investment. Also, looking at your sig rig, getting another stick of RAM would be good; running single-channel really hurts memory performance.


----------



## imran27

Regarding RAM, I bought it a few years n=back, if I buy the same RAM Corsair CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10 will I be able to run dual channel. I'll buy this right now if I'm able to add it to my current setup and make it dual channel. I'm about to add a Water 3.0 Extreme (some case modding and adding more case fans) so that I can OC my 8150. Is it worth going from an FX-8150 to 8350, since anyways I'm overclocking it, 8150 does good, if MoBo can't handle I'll pick a CHVZ, but should I really get 8350.
Also, at the same speed, how muchh better is 8350 vs 8150, what %of extra OC is reqd to match an 8350.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> Regarding RAM, I bought it a few years n=back, if I buy the same RAM Corsair CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10 will I be able to run dual channel. I'll buy this right now if I'm able to add it to my current setup and make it dual channel. I'm about to add a Water 3.0 Extreme (some case modding and adding more case fans) so that I can OC my 8150. Is it worth going from an FX-8150 to 8350, since anyways I'm overclocking it, 8150 does good, if MoBo can't handle I'll pick a CHVZ, but should I really get 8350.
> Also, at the same speed, how muchh better is 8350 vs 8150, what %of extra OC is reqd to match an 8350.


If it is same stick, and your board supports it, it will be dual channel. I think the 8350 can hit higher speeds than the 8150 (just a little) but you should get an aftermarket cooler. If you get 8350 see if you can put multi to 22 and Vcore to 1.3875. I don't do the stress tests for my machine, but I rendered a few 1080p videos while watching YouTube and gaming, so I'm pretty sure I'm stable.
I don't think the difference is too great between 8150 and the 8350, I think the higher performance is mainly from the higher base frequencies. You do not need a CHV for these chips, an ASUS 990FX board will do. I _think_ the difference at same speed is somewhere around 5%.

I haven't owned an 8150, most of this is coming from chat between owners of an 8150 and a 8350 in a thread a bit back... so just take that as a disclaimer. Also, do not let people use Skyrim benchmarks to tell you the power of your chip. Most benchmarks make it sound like our chips can't pull anything more than 30FPS

EDIT: Just saw your current board, you won't be able to OC your chip to the max on it, but you can still see some impressive numbers.


----------



## imran27

OKAY.

I want to achieve around 4.8-5 GHz, so I need to choose the MoBo accordingly. Water 3.0 Extreme should be good to handle it, may be might need a larger PSU, though I have CM thunder 500w which I think is enough bcoz the GFX is 6670 ddr5, not power hungry.

RAM i mentioned is exactly the same serial number that I have, so I should be able to dual channel them.

At last, I'm damn attached to my chip and I know how well the intel fanboys can mislead us to believe in their fake superiority, the current & future tools for development strongly focus on multi-threading and HSA (AMD is great at both).


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> ECC is overated and most people in the server space know this firsthand it doesn't decrease failure chances it just ensures that it doesn't make mistakes while it is storing something.


We runt plenty if stuff at work 24/7, and all physical machines runs several virtual machines. ECC is not overrated in any shape or form. ECC RAM can detect and correct single-bit data errors and can detect double-bit data errors. Without ECC you get can get corrupt RAM and you will not even know it. Errors can make VMs or processes fail, but most likely it will corrupt your data. Then the corrupted data spreads to backups and you have a very serious problem. Overrated my ass, for business critical stuff ECC is a requirement, RAS (such as chip fail, spare-bank etc) is pretty much mandatory for some applications.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> OKAY.
> 
> I want to achieve around 4.8-5 GHz, so I need to choose the MoBo accordingly. Water 3.0 Extreme should be good to handle it, may be might need a larger PSU, though I have CM thunder 500w which I think is enough bcoz the GFX is 6670 ddr5, not power hungry.
> 
> RAM i mentioned is exactly the same serial number that I have, so I should be able to dual channel them.
> 
> At last, I'm damn attached to my chip and I know how well the intel fanboys can mislead us to believe in their fake superiority, the current & future tools for development strongly focus on multi-threading and HSA (AMD is great at both).


I'm not sure about that PSU, but 500w on a good unit is enough for that rig. You need to realize that 5GHz is quite a bit for daily usage, though. It may take quite a bit of voltage, but higher volt = less life span.
Intel does lead by a bit on IPC, but for $200, the multitasking power of an 8 core cannot be beat.


----------



## imran27

My purpose for daily usage is video transcoding, compression, encryption, development (compiling, etc.), gaming (sleeping dogs, crysys 3, metro 2033, bioshock infinite, etc.) so I will benefit from 4.8 GHz (or 5 GHz







), I'm also thinking of adding an samsung 840 pro 120 GB SSD for OS and other stuff, with 16 GB of dual channel I'll use RAMdisk to boost application performance.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> My purpose for daily usage is video transcoding, compression, encryption, development (compiling, etc.), gaming (sleeping dogs, crysys 3, metro 2033, bioshock infinite, etc.) so I will benefit from 4.8 GHz (or 5 GHz
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ), I'm also thinking of adding an samsung 840 pro 120 GB SSD for OS and other stuff, with 16 GB of dual channel I'll use RAMdisk to boost application performance.


Rendering from one HDD to another (220MB/s seq), by CPU only hits 80% usage at 4GHz. You will need RAID SSD for your 8350 to be the bottleneck at 4.6+


----------



## imran27

For FX-8350 it hits 80%, for 8150 no more than 85% I guess. Instead of RAIDing two SSDs, better will be a single PCIe SSD.

I'll rather try to keep intensive tasks between SSD and RAMDisk keeping the HDD bottleneck away, then once finished, I can move the data to HDD.

RAMDisk are really really verry fast, I tried them once, load times are like instant in adobe reader, web-browsing (web-page rendering, etc.) is also very quick.


----------



## delboy67

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> For FX-8350 it hits 80%, for 8150 no more than 85% I guess. Instead of RAIDing two SSDs, better will be a single PCIe SSD.
> 
> I'll rather try to keep intensive tasks between SSD and RAMDisk keeping the HDD bottleneck away, then once finished, I can move the data to HDD.
> 
> RAMDisk are really really verry fast, I tried them once, load times are like instant in adobe reader, web-browsing (web-page rendering, etc.) is also very quick.


Sorry for the daft question but ramdisk is a program that allows you to store vital parts of the sw you use to the ram like a mini ssd? So I could use this to store parts of games to reduce load times? Any good links/reading about it?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> We runt plenty if stuff at work 24/7, and all physical machines runs several virtual machines. ECC is not overrated in any shape or form. ECC RAM can detect and correct single-bit data errors and can detect double-bit data errors. Without ECC you get can get corrupt RAM and you will not even know it. Errors can make VMs or processes fail, but most likely it will corrupt your data. Then the corrupted data spreads to backups and you have a very serious problem. Overrated my ass, for business critical stuff ECC is a requirement, RAS (such as chip fail, spare-bank etc) is pretty much mandatory for some applications.


Yeah and with ECC you can also get corrupt(as in broken) ram but it will just fail the bootup memtest it isn't more durable just less likely to make mistakes. I have 24GB of REG ECC ram in my system and I have already replaced 2 sticks of it and this PC has only been here since 2010.


----------



## imran27

Here you'll find some info
http://www.overclock.net/t/1086220/imdisk-open-source-ram-drive-with-no-size-limitations/0_100
http://www.overclock.net/t/1227803/how-to-set-up-and-utilize-ram-disks/0_100
http://www.overclock.net/t/833983/what-to-put-on-a-ramdisk/0_100
http://www.overclock.net/t/1392630/installing-a-game-into-a-ramdisk-almost-eliminates-load-times/0_100
http://www.overclock.net/t/1309049/setting-up-a-ram-disk-to-speed-things-up/0_100

I used Dataram RAMDisk software, it's free if you want 4 GB or less RAMdisk, for more RAMdisk space you go for some paid software or Open-source software like ImDisk


----------



## bardacuda

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> OKAY.
> 
> I want to achieve around 4.8-5 GHz, so I need to choose the MoBo accordingly. Water 3.0 Extreme should be good to handle it, may be might need a larger PSU, though I have CM thunder 500w which I think is enough bcoz the GFX is 6670 ddr5, not power hungry.
> 
> RAM i mentioned is exactly the same serial number that I have, so I should be able to dual channel them.
> 
> At last, I'm damn attached to my chip and I know how well the intel fanboys can mislead us to believe in their fake superiority, the current & future tools for development strongly focus on multi-threading and HSA (AMD is great at both).


Where you are using all your available threads no point in waiting to upgrade. 8350 is the best thing you will be able to get for at least another year or so. Then again, depending on the programs you use and whether or not they are able to successfully implement hsa features in the near future kaveri _could_ end up being more useful...so it might be worth waiting till the end of January after they have been out for a couple weeks and see...but you would be limited to 4 physical CPU cores. The 8350 is anywhere from 5 - 15% faster than an 8150 clock-for-clock...or roughly 10% faster on average. So really it's kind of a "meh" upgrade.

As far as RAM, the answer is yes - if you get another single stick of the exact same model you will be able to run it in dual channel mode with your existing stick and would double your capacity to 16GB.
RAM prices seem pretty high right now for some reason though. I seem to recall 8GB being about $45 - $50 but they're about $65+ right now









The PSU though...Cooler Master is bad news. Maybe they have gotten better in the past year or so but I don't know....haven't looked into it. I stay away from Cooler Master. Cooler Master is good at, well....cooling. Cases / heat sinks / fans - sure. Power supplies? No. I'm sure some of their high-end 800W+ 80 plus gold models are probably ok but even then I'd be wary of them. I'd have to see some good reviews first before I would consider using one. btw jonnyguru and hardocp do some really good power supply reviews if you're ever not sure.

500W is probably good enough if you aren't upgrading the video card but I'd go with a different brand. Anything Seasonic you won't have to worry about. (Or any of the Corsair, Antec, or XFX models that are manufactured by Seasonic also work. lol)

My suggestion for the cooler would be to go with a less expensive air cooler since they are just as good or better than the $100+ closed loop liquid coolers except they don't cost $100+. In my case I'm using a $25 hyper 212 plus in push/pull and when overclocking my chip to its limit I hit voltage and frequency thresholds before I hit any thermal ones. If you absolutely need every last ºC even something like a Noctua NH-U14S is gonna cool you about as cool as you're going to get without getting into a custom liquid cooled setup and it's only about $70. So take the $40 you save from that and put it towards a good power supply.

But anywhoo....so, yeah...Steamroller. When are we gonna see some real benchmarks, and what apps n' games are going to support and take advantage of hsa and mantle, and how much faster will they be!? Argh! This waiting sucks.


----------



## imran27

As far as cooler is concerned, I'm inclined towards Water 3.0 series, Pro or Extreme, Pro is first choice as I could fit in my case without modding.
I choose CLC for the reason that here in Mumbai, ambient temps are always better (High







), though still ambient dependent but Water 2.0 Pro performs great as far as I've seen,just 2-2.5 degrees better than Extreme.
Yeah I think I might go for some 700-800w seasonic psu or directly a 100w psu, since within next 6 months or so I plan to buy an R9 290X, or something better (but AMD only). Or I might go for GFX+PSU at the same time, since now so much isn't required.


----------



## Themisseble

http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-a107850k-benchmark-surfaced/

will be there an athlon? with steamroller arhitecture?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Probably yes. AMD offered igpu-less versions of their APU's with every generation, llano,trinity,richland. Odds are that they will do the same with Kaveri.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Probably yes. AMD offered igpu-less versions of their APU's with every generation, llano,trinity,richland. Odds are that they will do the same with Kaveri.


i hope so beacuse AM3+ MB doesnt offer much... FM2+ cheaper and better


----------



## heroxoot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132056

FM2+ and its still 30 - 50 dollars cheaper than an AM3+ of similar spec. My MSI 990FXA-GD80 is still 160 or so and this FM2+ has literally the same features. I would not mind switching to FM2+ but regardless of how a Kaveri 4 core will spank my 8150, I don't want to downgrade my core count. Having 8 is helpful for many things.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I was an advocate of those Athlon chips before, but now with HSA, Kaveri igpu seems to make great sense even on desktop. We will see.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132056
> 
> FM2+ and its still 30 - 50 dollars cheaper than an AM3+ of similar spec. My MSI 990FXA-GD80 is still 160 or so and this FM2+ has literally the same features. I would not mind switching to FM2+ but regardless of how a Kaveri 4 core will spank my 8150, I don't want to downgrade my core count. Having 8 is helpful for many things.


you get for 70$ great OC mobo... no need for this


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132056
> 
> FM2+ and its still 30 - 50 dollars cheaper than an AM3+ of similar spec. My MSI 990FXA-GD80 is still 160 or so and this FM2+ has literally the same features. I would not mind switching to FM2+ but regardless of how a Kaveri 4 core will spank my 8150, I don't want to downgrade my core count. Having 8 is helpful for many things.
> 
> 
> 
> you get for 70$ great OC mobo... no need for this
Click to expand...

Great OC with no crossfire? No thanks. I use my extra PCIE lanes for things like my network card.


----------



## mesasf

An AMD employee was listed on his Linkedin profile as having done work on "Kaveri, Carrizo, and Basilisk APU's", so the name is all but confirmed


----------



## yrettete

They should release the ps4 APU for desktops.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> They should release the ps4 APU for desktops.


lol that wouldn't happen and would be worthless as Sony has proprietary customized features.. it'd be terrible for general computing use


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> lol that wouldn't happen and would be worthless as Sony has proprietary customized features.. it'd be terrible for general computing use


Why do you think that? The only reason I could think of is maybe because of the GDDR5 as the only memory, which is optimized for bandwidth over latency. However we really dont know what the latency is on it, since we dont know the timings the chips use or how fast the memory controller can access the memory to feed the CPU. With how much higher frequency the GDDR5 is, it *may* actually be comparable in latency to DDR3. All the other stuff is just like any normal APU isnt it?

Edit: well I suppose another thing that would hold back performance is the Jaguar cores are not nearly as strong as any desktop CPUs, and then they also run at really low frequency too which compounds the problem. It would be ok if a game was fully multi-threaded but for the majority of stuff your right the CPU performance would probably not be nearly good enough.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Why do you think that? The only reason I could think of is maybe because of the GDDR5 as the only memory, which is optimized for bandwidth over latency. However we really dont know what the latency is on it, since we dont know the timings the chips use or how fast the memory controller can access the memory to feed the CPU. With how much higher frequency the GDDR5 is, it *may* actually be comparable in latency to DDR3. All the other stuff is just like any normal APU isnt it?
> 
> Edit: well I suppose another thing that would hold back performance is the Jaguar cores are not nearly as strong as any desktop CPUs, and then they also run at really low frequency too which compounds the problem. It would be ok if a game was fully multi-threaded but for the majority of stuff your right the CPU performance would probably not be nearly good enough.


That and the customized changes Sony made to it reduces the general purpose I am trying to find the article that described the differences between the xbone and ps4

Here is a similar article
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156273-xbox-720-vs-ps4-vs-pc-how-the-hardware-specs-compare


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> They should release the ps4 APU for desktops.


I doubt the jaguar cores wouldn't bottleneck the immense gpu even with mantle making the cpu less incapable.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> I doubt the jaguar cores wouldn't bottleneck the immense gpu even with mantle making the cpu less incapable.


Should also put business standpoint they would not profit from it as listening fees due to rights would also make it expensive perf/watt after everyone breaks even


----------



## Kuivamaa

It isn't even a regular APU, it is a SoC that includes 2 separate quad jaguar dies. They would be better off offerin triple SR module chips or something like that.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> It isn't even a regular APU, it is a SoC that includes *2 separate quad jaguar dies*. They would be better off offerin triple SR module chips or something like that.


Did you mean to say 2 modules? Its a single die with 2 jaguar modules (4 cores + L2) and the GPU.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Did you mean to say 2 modules? Its a single die with 2 jaguar modules (4 cores + L2) and the GPU.


The jaguar design doesnt use "modules" in the same way as we are used to with desktop chips, at least from what I have seen on it. I think the terminology of two, quad core die's is correct. Each CPU die is 4 cores and they MCM two of them together. At least that was my take on the CPU design when I saw info about it.


----------



## MrJava

In the semiconductor world, a die refers to a single piece of silicon. The APUs in the PS4/Xbone are single dies, not MCMs composed of multiple dies.

The smallest building block of a Jaguar-based processor is 4 cores + L2 and could be referred to as a module (don't know AMD refers to it as) in the same way that 2 cores + L2 is the smallest building block of a Bulldozer-based processor. The modules are hooked up via a northbridge in a similar fashion to the desktop APUs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> The jaguar design doesnt use "modules" in the same way as we are used to with desktop chips, at least from what I have seen on it. I think the terminology of two, quad core die's is correct. Each CPU die is 4 cores and they MCM two of them together. At least that was my take on the CPU design when I saw info about it.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> Did you mean to say 2 modules? Its a single die with 2 jaguar modules (4 cores + L2) and the GPU.


No I meant 2 dies and I was mistaken, everything is on the same die.


----------



## NaroonGTX

MrJava is correct.



There are two separate quad-core Jaguar modules on the die of the XB1/PS4's APU's. They are both single-die chips.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> MrJava is correct.
> 
> 
> 
> There are two separate quad-core Jaguar modules on the die of the XB1/PS4's APU's. They are both single-die chips.


shame on MS for taking up so much room with that 32MB of super fast on chip memory and then use DDR3 for the rest. (it is good for what MS planed for it though use as a streaming video box) But for gaming the bigger gpu portion and GDDR5 will be better as it is mostly inprecise calculations that have to be handeled fast.

GDDR5 = fast and imprecise
DDR3 = slower but super precise.

Not really related to steamroller but certainly APU talk.
I hope small cores gain in power year after year as it is the thing that everybody is focussing on and if multicore scaling and HSA pick up I can see us enthusiasts switching and overclocking those to hell and back.
14nm tap out is somewhere in 2014 for AMD so that would make the ultra mobile parts become available somewhere 2015.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Yeah and with ECC you can also get corrupt(as in broken) ram but it will just fail the bootup memtest it isn't more durable just less likely to make mistakes.


That's the whole point, to know when it is broken. For servers this is essential. Durability is not the point.
Quote:


> I have 24GB of REG ECC ram in my system ...


People can do whatever they want with their boxes at home, in a business server you need ECC etc. AMD will not be able to sell anything to enterprise users that lack ECC etc. They are being punished pretty severely in that space already, their marketshare is kinda small compared to what it was.

I don't think anyone want the chip from PS4/Xbox1 in their desktop PC. The Jaguar Core is decent for it's purpose, low power. The new Puma core looks great, higher perf and lower power. Beema has on paper almost a quarter better perf while consuming about two thirds of the power compared to Kabini. I hope this holds true when the silicon arrives








Would be a decent competitor to the new Atom.
Quote:


> G34 = Efficient, Error-correction, Low Power, etc
> GC36 = Fast, Speed, High Power, High Performance
> Both LGA1974.


I hope you're right Seronx, a LGA socket for enthusiasts on an AMD platform would be great. Could be a very nice upgrade in a year or two.

Edit: Spelling and grammar as usual.


----------



## NaroonGTX

An AMD employee dropped a slight hint that there could possibly be an LGA platform for enthusiasts in the future in an old LinusTechTips video about Bulldozer, but it was just a small "who knows, it could happen" thing. I doubt it will be anytime soon, however.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> 14nm tap out is somewhere in 2014 for AMD so that would make the ultra mobile parts become available somewhere 2015.


Who's doing 14nm in 2014/15, other than Intel (which is actually closer to ~16nm, IIRC)? I thought TSMC was just getting their more basic 20nm working, and GloFo doesn't even have that yet? With added complications resulting from FinFET, I don't think AMD is going to progress beyond 20nm until at least 2016, personally; although I'd love to be wrong on that.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> An AMD employee dropped a slight hint that there could possibly be an LGA platform for enthusiasts in the future in an old LinusTechTips video about Bulldozer, but it was just a small "who knows, it could happen" thing. I doubt it will be anytime soon, however.


I would totes buy that if they integrated an awesome GPU. I'll go Intel, either Xeons or i7 Extremes, if I want a CPU.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 16 core FX for sure will not be on AM3+, if you mean a new socket. The socket it should be on is G34 or GC36.


Is the 16 core FX Steamroller strictly a cpu or is it an apu? I presume cpu. It would be nice somewhere down the line we get a 6 or 8 core apu. Do you think it is more than likely or less than likely given another 18 months or so?


----------



## NaroonGTX

I would assume it would be a CPU and a MCM design. The die size would still be pretty big, especially with the L3 cache on there, so I doubt it'd have a GPU as well.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Who's doing 14nm in 2014/15, other than Intel (which is actually closer to ~16nm, IIRC)? I thought TSMC was just getting their more basic 20nm working, and GloFo doesn't even have that yet? With added complications resulting from FinFET, I don't think AMD is going to progress beyond 20nm until at least 2016, personally; although I'd love to be wrong on that.


Both TSMC and GloFO are doing 14-16nm FinFet, but last I heard no real products before 2015 at the earliest. TSMC is talking all the time about how aggressive they are on the ramp up for 16nm FinFet, but the earliest tape-outs I've heard about is end of 2014, so no real silicon before 2015 really. And if there are delays... TSMC:s low power 20nm process seems to do fine, there will probably be SOC and the like on the market H1 2014. However, all the info I've seen points to that high performance parts like desktop CPU and GPU isn't really practical on TSMC:s 20nm, as it is optimized for small, low power SOC and the like. I would also love to be wrong on this, maybe they have had some sort of breakthrough and there will be desktop 20nm CPU/GPU H2 2014.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> An AMD employee dropped a slight hint that there could possibly be an LGA platform for enthusiasts in the future in an old LinusTechTips video about Bulldozer, but it was just a small "who knows, it could happen" thing. I doubt it will be anytime soon, however.


Yeah, it would be great, even in a year or two. All hopes for AMD's focus products like Kaveri and mobile, so they have money to do some high performance stuff








I do not need a new CPU as my 8350 does all I want and more. Sure there could be more performance, but for the price it has been excellent. Lets me spend more on stuff like liquid cooling, fun to play with


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Who's doing 14nm in 2014/15, other than Intel (which is actually closer to ~16nm, IIRC)? I thought TSMC was just getting their more basic 20nm working, and GloFo doesn't even have that yet? With added complications resulting from FinFET, I don't think AMD is going to progress beyond 20nm until at least 2016, personally; although I'd love to be wrong on that.


Glofo is pushing hard on their 14nm xm node.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 16 core FX for sure will not be on AM3+, if you mean a new socket. The socket it should be on is G34 or GC36.
> 
> 
> 
> Is the 16 core FX Steamroller strictly a cpu or is it an apu? I presume cpu. It would be nice somewhere down the line we get a 6 or 8 core apu. Do you think it is more than likely or less than likely given another 18 months or so?
Click to expand...

I personally think AMD is gonna drop a giant bomb on us once they figure out how to push the limits of copper and get us a solid replacement for Hypertransport and PCIe. That'd let them tap the professional workstation market, where you slap a label on something, do some extra testing, give them some fancy drivers, and put an extra zero on the end of the price. It's an extremely lucrative market to be in.

Web servers don't need that kind of horsepower. It doesn't take much to serve a major web application. I've had really simple web application pull in a million unique hits a day and I did it on a 1GB Linode without too much trouble. Which is just a 4 core Xeon shared with like 16 people.

Meaning I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD's lineup change from big x86 cores starting in servers and trickling down to HEDT to servers mostly being ARM, a different platform for gaming PCs and workstations, and then of course mobile rounded out with ARM and small core x86.

Making a specific platform for workstation and HEDT would be ideal. It'd allow for motherboard manufacturers to sell two socket systems with loads of slots for graphics cards/GPGPU cards and pass them off as workstation boards, while letting the gamers and HEDT folks who want that kind of power have access to it.

AMD going that route would allow for them to have things like this on their platform (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188070, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131357). Motherboard manufacturers wouldn't have to take the risk they had to previously take of making these boards strictly for HEDT enthusiasts, and instead could sell them as workstation boards _as well as_ workstation cards.

A two slot board which could have overclocked Opterons (thanks to bus clocking) would actually give AMD a high end platform that Intel doesn't have (the last SRX board evga released couldn't be overclocked because you can't bus overclock Xeons). It has a lot of potential for the few major spenders who would buy something like that, but by merging workstation and HEDT it would make those products have a far larger amount of potential customers.

The needs of server have changed dramatically and they're nothing like the needs of HEDT or workstations now. As I've been saying forever, taking a server chip and translating it over to a HEDT platform makes absolutely zero sense at all. Server right now is full of software where you have to pay for licenses of software PER CORE and performance per watt is the most important metric. Absolutely none of those constraints apply to HEDT and trying to ramrod a product into both market segments will, surprise, leave you with a product that is mediocre on both platforms.


----------



## imran27

Does anybody know the possibility of an 8-core steamroller, if AMD is and to manufacture an 8C steamroller apu then it'll definitely be great and will compete with haswell E series 4C/8T CPUs since APUs have had better per core performance and the way HSA is being pushed by AMD it seems that it'll soon become a popular way to program computationally intensive tasks and Thak then be a one sided benefit to AMD. They should also think over better ways of hybrid crossfiring of APUs iGPU and anything better than that since hardcore gamers will definitely opt for R9 280X or 290X, so we should be able to hybrid x-fire them to provide some benefit, it'll appear as an advantage more for HSA rather than gaming


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> Does anybody know the possibility of an 8-core steamroller, if AMD is and to manufacture an 8C steamroller apu then it'll definitely be great and will compete with haswell E series 4C/8T CPUs since APUs have had better per core performance and the way HSA is being pushed by AMD it seems that it'll soon become a popular way to program computationally intensive tasks and Thak then be a one sided benefit to AMD. They should also think over better ways of hybrid crossfiring of APUs iGPU and anything better than that since hardcore gamers will definitely opt for R9 280X or 290X, so we should be able to hybrid x-fire them to provide some benefit, it'll appear as an advantage more for HSA rather than gaming


No 4m/8c Steamrollers, at least in 2014. We'll have to wait until 2015 for something bigger than four cores, and those will more likely be Excavator. For the time being, Vishera will have to do, it seems.

Your second point of better Hybrid Crossfire is to be handled with Mantle, it seems.


----------



## yrettete

do we get battlefield 4 free with the 7850k ??

that's nice.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> Does anybody know the possibility of an 8-core steamroller, if AMD is and to manufacture an 8C steamroller apu then it'll definitely be great and will compete with haswell E series 4C/8T CPUs since APUs have had better per core performance and the way HSA is being pushed by AMD it seems that it'll soon become a popular way to program computationally intensive tasks and Thak then be a one sided benefit to AMD. They should also think over better ways of hybrid crossfiring of APUs iGPU and anything better than that since hardcore gamers will definitely opt for R9 280X or 290X, so we should be able to hybrid x-fire them to provide some benefit, it'll appear as an advantage more for HSA rather than gaming
> 
> 
> 
> No 4m/8c Steamrollers, at least in 2014. We'll have to wait until 2015 for something bigger than four cores, and those will more likely be Excavator. For the time being, Vishera will have to do, it seems.
> 
> Your second point of better Hybrid Crossfire is to be handled with Mantle, it seems.
Click to expand...

This makes me feel like AMD thinks it was a mistake to release 8 cores to begin with. Have 8 cores has plenty of good use.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Is the 16 core FX Steamroller strictly a cpu or is it an apu? I presume cpu. It would be nice somewhere down the line we get a 6 or 8 core apu. Do you think it is more than likely or less than likely given another 18 months or so?


12 and 16 core FX will use the same die as Warsaw which is 12 and 16 PD cores only. Steamroller FX will be strictly CPU possibly with a max core count of 24 SR cores. I think we will see 8+ CPU core APUs after January 2016, which is 24+ months.


----------



## yrettete

Steamroller is just the

AMD A10-7850K

and A10-7700K

That's it.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

At launch. A8s and A6s will follow, perhaps A4s. Are those even still made?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 12 and 16 core FX will use the same die as Warsaw which is 12 and 16 PD cores only. Steamroller FX will be strictly CPU possibly with a max core count of 24 SR cores. I think we will see 8+ CPU core APUs after January 2016, which is 24+ months.


If there are to be steamroller FX chips, I would assume when .20-.22nm process is employed we will also have Excavator or Ballisk FX chips


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> At launch. A8s and A6s will follow, perhaps A4s. Are those even still made?


They would be utterly pointless, considering the low prices of the a10


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> They would be utterly pointless, considering the low prices of the a10


5 dolla Sucky sucky lol wouldn't be bad if hsa was fully implemented and adopted hope sub $200 if done right.. but guess that's where the puma cores would go?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> If there are to be steamroller FX chips, I would assume when .20-.22nm process is employed we will also have Excavator or Ballisk FX chips


Basilisk is APU, which can only have A10 through Z models, Athlon models, FirePro models, and Opteron models.

20nm SHP should pop up around early 2015.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> If there are to be steamroller FX chips, I would assume when .20-.22nm process is employed we will also have Excavator or Ballisk FX chips


It's not .22nm, it's just 22nm. .22nm is 220pm is about one silicon atom (atomic radius ~= 110pm). I don't see FX returning until DDR4 at least, when AMD hopefully reenters the enterprise market.


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> They would be utterly pointless, considering the low prices of the a10


Kaveri A10s will be ~$150-180 most likely; there's quite a range between that and $0, which happens to be the exact range that holds Sempron, Athlon, A4, A6, A8, FX-4xxx to 8xxx, Celeron, Pentium, i3, and low end i5. Not to mention the wide range of wattages (35W to 95W) that Kaveri will feature. There will undoubtedly be Kaveri A6 and A8. A4 seems to have been taken over by Kabini/Beema, so I'm not sure if Kaveri will use that name.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Kaveri A10s will be ~$150-180 most likely; there's quite a range between that and $0, which happens to be the exact range that holds Sempron, Athlon, A4, A6, A8, FX-4xxx to 8xxx, Celeron, Pentium, i3, and low end i5. Not to mention the wide range of wattages (35W to 95W) that Kaveri will feature. There will undoubtedly be Kaveri A6 and A8. A4 seems to have been taken over by Kabini/Beema, so I'm not sure if Kaveri will use that name.


Your on the high side. I don't see the the A10 7850 selling above $165 except at first issue when the pent up demand will be high.I think its long term price will be about $159.


----------



## yrettete

plus a new fm2 motherboard, another 40 pounds


----------



## Seronx

I thought the prices were confirmed already somewhat...

A10-7850K -> $199.99 (Converted to USD)
A10 7700K -> $179.99 (Converted to USD)


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

From an unreliable source that has always had higher-than-launch prices in the past. For the 7850k, $160 tops, $150 likely, I'm calling it now.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Those were pre-order prices, and inflated ones at that. Sites always inflate the prices like that, same happened with the 6800k in some sites and the R9-290/290x cards. Actual price will be around $150 for the 7850k and lower for other SKU's. An AMD employee hinted it would be in the same price range that the 6800k previously occupied anyway, I'll post the link if I can find the article.


----------



## Kuivamaa

FX-8350 pre-order price was around 260 US dollars,and we know it launched much cheaper than that.


----------



## delboy67

What board would you guys recommend for a kaveri? Looking at the asrock a88 extreme 6, used the full atx gigabyte hd3 for my brothers build and it does the job havent oc'd yet though. The vrms look better on the asrock (8+2) and it has 2x pci 3 x16 slots, I've used asrock for myself for years no probs though they dont seem to get good reviews on here. Both are similar price here.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> What board would you guys recommend for a kaveri? Looking at the asrock a88 extreme 6, used the full atx gigabyte hd3 for my brothers build and it does the job havent oc'd yet though. The vrms look better on the asrock (8+2) and it has 2x pci 3 x16 slots, I've used asrock for myself for years no probs though they dont seem to get good reviews on here. Both are similar price here.


It is a decent board. The main problem with the better Asrock boards is not the hardware quality, but poor bios implementation and bad software for their advanced features.. Their customer service is almost non-existent if you run into these problems. If you don't bother with their buggy advanced software and are patient they will eventually fix the bios issues. I just find Asus support for their better bards to be more reliable.But right now I like the Exteme 6 Asrock a88 to be the best designed board for Kaveri right now. I have not yet seen a really top-notch board from Asus or Gigabyte. You cant really run triple X-fire on the boards out there becase of limited pci express lanes. This may well be due to the very limited pci express 3.0 lanes in Kaveri design. So you really are limited to one pci express3.0 x 16 slot. Iff you do dual crossfire on a board with 2 pci express 3.0 slots they will both default to x8 bandwidth which is like pci express 2.0 with 2 x16 slots. If you are using dual 290X crossfire you will saturate the pci-express bus and get slightly slower scores than if you had 2full x16 pci express 3.0 compliant x fire slots. Perhaps when Carrizo is implemented in 2015 there will be slightly increased pci express 3.0 lanes and this may no longer be a problem with newer boards.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> What board would you guys recommend for a kaveri? Looking at the asrock a88 extreme 6, used the full atx gigabyte hd3 for my brothers build and it does the job havent oc'd yet though. The vrms look better on the asrock (8+2) and it has 2x pci 3 x16 slots, I've used asrock for myself for years no probs though they dont seem to get good reviews on here. Both are similar price here.


I've used 2 of the asrock extreme 6's in the past fm1 and an fm2 and had no problems with them.
1 has been running 24/7 for over 2 years now in an Industrial setting which isn't environmentally controlled it sees extremes in vibration, heat , cold humidity , electromagnetic fields from huge electric motors and tons of dust , it's a very demanding environment.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> What board would you guys recommend for a kaveri? Looking at the asrock a88 extreme 6, used the full atx gigabyte hd3 for my brothers build and it does the job havent oc'd yet though. The vrms look better on the asrock (8+2) and it has 2x pci 3 x16 slots, I've used asrock for myself for years no probs though they dont seem to get good reviews on here. Both are similar price here.


The VRM om the Asrock doesn't look that good. It isn't really a 8+2 as the PWM chip (IR3565A) is a dual 4+2. Check here: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASRock-FM2A88X-EXTREME6+/1823/6
So in reality it is a four phase with doublers. I have looked at the spec sheets for the VRM mosfets (links to spec sheets on hardwaresecrets), and they don't look very good, there probably have to be a lot of them for it to work.

The Gigabyte UP4 on the other hand uses International Rectifier PowerStage mosfets (IR3550 or IR3553) for all it's 6+2 phases, and those mosfets are stupid powerful (60A or 40A). And they can provide this power and not melt, they have very high efficiency. If comparing VRM, the UP4 wins hands down, no contest. If you haven't, check out Sin's video on how to compare mosfets:
http://youtu.be/6Fl1iFtOLKU

I have a X79-UP4 with the IR3550 mosftes, that board has 6+2 phases and it has no problem running a CPU with 160 Watt TDP. Train wreck of a BIOS/UEFI, but the components are solid.

Now, I think the Asrock will probably do just fine for normal use. High overclocking with high TDP APU:s? Don't know, depends how effective the VRM heatsink is.


----------



## miklkit

Two questions.

1. MSI discontinued their 990FX boards for a while and now they are back. They look the same and are named the same but now the GD80 is 220w FX5 ready. What is FX5?

2. For FM2 I am looking at this one. Watcha think?
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-A88XPRO


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *miklkit*
> 
> Two questions.
> 
> 1. MSI discontinued their 990FX boards for a while and now they are back. They look the same and are named the same but now the GD80 is 220w FX5 ready. What is FX5?
> 
> 2. For FM2 I am looking at this one. Watcha think?
> http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-A88XPRO


Most likely marketing for 5ghz chips for 1

2 that is a good board


----------



## NaroonGTX

FX5 = FX-9590 (5ghz) and FX-9370.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *miklkit*
> 
> Two questions.
> 
> 1. MSI discontinued their 990FX boards for a while and now they are back. They look the same and are named the same but now the GD80 is 220w FX5 ready. What is FX5?
> 
> 2. For FM2 I am looking at this one. Watcha think?
> http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-A88XPRO


220W, FX5=9590 I would assume..


----------



## miklkit

I just never heard of them called FX5 before and was wondering if they know something we don't.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I've seen 4FX and 6FX for the 4300s and 6300s. It's not going to be designed for a CPU that hasn't even been announced for sure.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Pentacore, heh, that would be interesting, 2 and a half modules, could become a sitcom.


----------



## Libes

I bought this, now if I can add it to my current settings, the double channel. I will add water 3 extreme (modified and added the chassis fan more in some cases,), so I can overclock my 8150. Whether it is from FX-8150 to 8350, because I'm the overclocking, 8150 really good, if the motherboard can not deal with, I will choose a CHVZ, but I should really get 8350.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Libes*
> 
> I bought this, now if I can add it to my current settings, the double channel. I will add water 3 extreme (modified and added the chassis fan more in some cases,), so I can overclock my 8150. Whether it is from FX-8150 to 8350, because I'm the overclocking, 8150 really good, if the motherboard can not deal with, I will choose a CHVZ, but I should really get 8350.


Although this would be the wrong thread... 8350 is OK on anybody that was able to use 8150

8350 runs cooler.. better.. and faster than 8150. The order goes 8150 < 1100t < 8350.. As for socket it doesn't look like there is going to be a steamroller fx.. hoping though

Now if you have the cooling the 9570 is actually a pretty good deal these days


----------



## yrettete

How will the 7850k perform against the 8350


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Better in singlethread, likely to be worse in 6+ multithread.


----------



## yrettete

how many cores will 7850k have ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> how many cores will 7850k have ?


4


----------



## yrettete

is the 7700k the same as 7850k but underclocked ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Pretty much, and also 128 fewer shaders.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> How will the 7850k perform against the 8350


with a dedicated GPU, for GPU bound games the 7850k will likely perform better then a 8350, same with low threading games. (PoE, blizzard games, skyrim etc)

when you start to get into heavy usage games BF4, Deus Ex HR, Borderlands 2, i would think the raw core count on the 8350 would give it an advantage.

in a production work environment, encoding, decoding, compressing ETC, the 8350 will be superior

the mistake most make is that these two processors are not meant to share the same market space.

they are both the "attainable" flag ship for their lines (FX9 series is almost attainable another price cut should do







)

AMD wants to see how the public takes too Kaveri. what compute apps can take advantage of the iGPU if you have dGPU, what will be written to take advantage of this?

I think AMD is playing it safe on the FX side. they likely have a fork in the road again and don't know what to do about it. rather then risk another blunder they need to make sure their next FX offering knocks it outta the park.

What the road map says to me. 990fx is dead and they know it. their fork is likely AX series chip set for the FX, or update FX chip set to alight with AX more. To do with will out fumbling they need market feedback..

enter kaveri.. an APU that can do some of the tasks the FX can but not the big tasks.. if they get feedback that kaveri needs more power.. i can almost see them rolling out a FX/APU 6-9 months after


----------



## yrettete

Should I sell my graphics card , a gtx 660 , and just game with the 7850k from next month ?


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> in a production work environment, encoding, decoding, compressing ETC, the 8350 will be superior


If HSA or OpenCL or the like is used, the 7850k should be faster by a pretty significant margin in such things; that being said, heterogeneous compute is currently not used enough in such environments to make the APU faster overall.

In gaming, Mantle would give a performance advantage to the 8350, but both could drive very impressive GPU setups, so it's less of a concern.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Should I sell my graphics card , a gtx 660 , and just game with the 7850k from next month ?


dGPU > iGPU

AMD iGPU > Intel iGPU

660 is still better you can't get the benifit of the APU as much though because you can't crossfire the iGPU to the dGPU, now if you had a 7850 it would be a different story


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Should I sell my graphics card , a gtx 660 , and just game with the 7850k from next month ?


I dunno why you'd do that, unless budget is a concern. The 7850k's GPU would still lose to the GTX 660. If you feel you wish to upgrade your CPU (whatever it is), then feel free, but I don't see the need in getting rid of a perfectly capable GPU like that.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Should I sell my graphics card , a gtx 660 , and just game with the 7850k from next month ?


If i understand the spec of the iGPU correctly I would think that you would get slightly better performance using the iGPU.

I don't think it would be a noticeable difference.

I would say go for it, as the sale of your GTX660 will likely get you that majority of funding you need for the 7850k

and if you already have the FM2+ and Kaveri at that point, Dump the money you make from the GTX into fast ram.

APU's benifit greatly from fast ram when using the iGPU


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> dGPU > iGPU


Not necessarily. Shared system memory and graphics memory mean the CPU doesn't need to copy data to the GPU's VRAM, reducing latency. Wait for the benchmarks, and I guarantee a quadcore Kaveri Athlon with a 7750 will lose to a 7850k by a measurable amount despite being more-or-less the same silicon.


----------



## yrettete

Another advantage of getting rid of my GPU is more room in my case, and one less fan making noise.

And most standard gpu fans are bad anyway.

GPUs are now only for hardcore gamers.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> If HSA or OpenCL or the like is used, the 7850k should be faster by a pretty significant margin in such things; that being said, heterogeneous compute is currently not used enough in such environments to make the APU faster overall.
> 
> In gaming, Mantle would give a performance advantage to the 8350, but both could drive very impressive GPU setups, so it's less of a concern.


Agreed, I'm merely speaking on things that we are seeing now.

i'm on the fence about mantle.. we were supposed to see it in December, as the holiday are pretty much upon us I doubt very much we will see it before the end of the year.

Mantle is also not going be written into current games on the market that people enjoy. so i don't think mantle will give a blanket advantage at all.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Another advantage of getting rid of my GPU is more room in my case, and one less fan making noise.
> 
> And most standard gpu fans are bad anyway.
> 
> GPUs are now only for hardcore gamers.


Are you saying you aren't hardcore like me?







The door is that way -->








I'm kidding. Neither of my GPUs' fans make much if any noise, even on full-blast. The CPU cooler's fan is what makes the most noise. Everybody needs a GPU in their system unless you're just running a server that doesn't need a direct user interface. Usually though the Intel iGPUs are enough for office PCs.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> GPUs are now only for hardcore gamers.


I'll flat out disagree with this.

a dGPU will no longer be required for Console 'LIKE" pc gaming.

there will always be games that will be unplayable for the most part above low settings.

If you want the eye candy, you pay for the dGPU.

not even going to go into the untapped consumer power of gpgpu..


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not necessarily. Shared system memory and graphics memory mean the CPU doesn't need to copy data to the GPU's VRAM, reducing latency. Wait for the benchmarks, and I guarantee a quadcore Kaveri Athlon with a 7750 will lose to a 7850k by a measurable amount despite being more-or-less the same silicon.


A DDR3 7750 perhaps, but I doubt the 7850k will beat a normal GDDR5 7750. Also, the 660 is similar in performance to the HD7850, which would make it significantly faster than the 7850k or the 7750.

Yrettete, I'd keep the 660 if I were you, unless you absolutely needed to use the IGP for some reason.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not necessarily. Shared system memory and graphics memory mean the CPU doesn't need to copy data to the GPU's VRAM, reducing latency. Wait for the benchmarks, and I guarantee a quadcore Kaveri Athlon with a 7750 will lose to a 7850k by a measurable amount despite being more-or-less the same silicon.


I sort of agree. I have noticed that an integrated 7660D when overclocked and combined with very fast system ram (2133 and faster) can occasionaly match a discreet GDDR5 6670 ,and the 7660D has fewer cores of the same type (VLIW4). I am waiting to see where the iGPU in the 7850k will fall performance-wise with a big o/c and fast ram.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not necessarily. Shared system memory and graphics memory mean the CPU doesn't need to copy data to the GPU's VRAM, reducing latency. Wait for the benchmarks, and I guarantee a quadcore Kaveri Athlon with a 7750 will lose to a 7850k by a measurable amount despite being more-or-less the same silicon.


you have a point.. as far as the direct comparison though, the line hasn't been seen, there will be a defining line where the iGPU will beat a dGPU especially in cases of lower end dGPUs Your comparison will be close but not too sure of exactly where
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Another advantage of getting rid of my GPU is more room in my case, and one less fan making noise.
> 
> And most standard gpu fans are bad anyway.
> 
> GPUs are now only for hardcore gamers.


I wouldn't say hardcore gamers.. ever try to play World of Warcraft (i know i know its old) or even simpler games like Sim City or the Sims 3 with anything less than a dGPU you would still be crushed with the frame drops

None of those titles would be considered hardcore gaming.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> A DDR3 7750 perhaps, but I doubt the 7850k will beat a normal GDDR5 7750. Also, the 660 is similar in performance to the HD7850, which would make it significantly faster than the 7850k or the 7750.
> 
> Yrettete, I'd keep the 660 if I were you, unless you absolutely needed to use the IGP for some reason.


^this. also the dGPU noise (unless set to full 100% and overclocked) is not much. Heck I hear my radiator fans over both of my dGPUs until I crank them up when gaming


----------



## yrettete

But with Mantle the iGPU is more like a 7770


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> you have a point.. as far as the direct comparison though, the line hasn't been seen, there will be a defining line where the iGPU will beat a dGPU especially in cases of lower end dGPUs Your comparison will be close but not too sure of exactly where


It would be nice if there were 760K+7730 vs. 6800K+2133MHz RAM comparisons, but none exist. If anybody has the hardware, would you please run some comparisons?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> But with Mantle the iGPU is more like a 7770


There will be performance boosts with Mantle, sure, but that 7770 would also get boosted and then outclass the 7850k.

Also, it goes without saying, not every game supports Mantle.


----------



## yrettete

How fast will steamroller be in things like a virus scan, or copying data to a usb ?


----------



## NaroonGTX

We have no idea dude, processor's not even out and we have no idea how the CPU will perform.

EDIT: http://www.hardwareschotte.de/preisvergleich/Amd-A10-7850K-Black-Edition-Apu-AD785KXBJABOX-p21826030
DDR3-2400 support confirmed?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> We have no idea dude, processor's not even out and we have no idea how the CPU will perform.


Ah, come on! The correct answer is "better than Piledriver but worse than Haswell."


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> How fast will steamroller be in things like a virus scan, or copying data to a usb ?


These tasks are not really cpu sensitive, more a matter of hard drive.


----------



## EniGma1987

Could you all please stop feeding the troll?


----------



## NaroonGTX

A10-7850k already listed on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H7Z7YMI?tag=anan06-20


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

$174 is improbable. That's i5P territory.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Pre-listing/pre-order prices are always higher than the final retail price.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Yeah, and it's really annoying. On launch day: 1TB Samsung 840 EVO for $650! You save $200! Sigh. No Amazon. Samsung themselves said it was $650. You aren't saving anything. But come January 14th, we'll see "was $174, now $150. You save $24!"


----------



## NaroonGTX

Lol yep. Both Amazon and Newegg will price-gouge most likely. I remember when the FX-8350 came out, the prices were usually well beyond the $200 price that AMD themselves had set.


----------



## Durquavian

I am beginning to not like Newegg for that price gouging thing as well. IE: R9 290(x)


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Agreed, I'm merely speaking on things that we are seeing now.
> 
> i'm on the fence about mantle.. we were supposed to see it in December, as the holiday are pretty much upon us I doubt very much we will see it before the end of the year.
> 
> Mantle is also not going be written into current games on the market that people enjoy. so i don't think mantle will give a blanket advantage at all.


Not true AMD never promised Mantle for December. Mantle is under development. It will not be available in all likelihood for a few months.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Not true AMD never promised Mantle for December. Mantle is under development. It will not be available in all likelihood for a few months.


It was either AMD or Dice one that did in fact state it would be available mid/late December.


----------



## agrims

It was Dice. They stated that there would be a update that pushed mantle in late Dec.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> It was Dice. They stated that there would be a update that pushed mantle in late Dec.


It gets so hard to remember what was actually said after you read about 4507 posts on mantle and everyones daily take on it.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> It gets so hard to remember what was actually said after you read about 4507 posts on mantle and everyones daily take on it.


With that being said 2014 is going to be a big year. We will see whether is gets the developers push or not


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> It was Dice. They stated that there would be a update that pushed mantle in late Dec.


Perhaps a beta version.


----------



## yrettete

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380793810436?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

will that run steamroller ?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380793810436?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
> 
> will that run steamroller ?


Yes it will. Kaveri is on FM2+ socket, so it will work on this board. I however prefer the Extreme 6 A88 Asrock board. It is better built.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes it will. Kaveri is on FM2+ socket, so it will work on this board. I however prefer the Extreme 6 A88 Asrock board. It is better built.




What's that red port on it ?


----------



## mwl5apv

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Yes it will. Kaveri is on FM2+ socket, so it will work on this board. I however prefer the Extreme 6 A88 Asrock board. It is better built.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What's that red port on it ?
Click to expand...

E-Sata port


----------



## yrettete

What for ?

To clone a HDD without opening up my case and connecting it to my motherboard ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

It's faster than USB 3.0 by a factor of two. It's for external drives.


----------



## rpsgc

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Could you all please stop feeding the troll?


Please? For crying out loud, this thread is to talk about Steamroller, not for noob questions.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *mwl5apv*
> 
> E-Sata port


darn was just going to be the good helping guy









It is pretty much a useless port tbh Steamroller got me all excited to upgrade my old AM3 board to a AM3+ proccesor of course that would require me to add microcode for Piledriver to the ancient board. I wonder how it would perform the board was pretty high end and that while it was so cheap.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/M3A785GXH128M/


----------



## yrettete

A man cools 7850k with liquid nitrogen.

But no news on performance .

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-apu-spotted-cooled-with-ln2/


----------



## NaroonGTX

Lol I dunno why people keep reporting that. We won't know about performance until next month.


----------



## sdlvx

Seeing "zomg ln2 overclock!" before anything else scares me. It's basically advertising to go "wow look at what this chip can do _teh jiggahurtz xD_!" and if I remember correctly, we saw a lot of that before the zambezi release.


----------



## Kuivamaa

...and before trinity/vishera hit the desktop too.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Hasn't that happened for tons of AMD CPU releases? Lol I wouldn't overthink this. After all, it was just Biostar.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

You've gotta give AMD credit: they know that all dem jiggahertzs be real sexy. All you need to do this is an FM2+ motherboard, LN2 equipment, and gullible idiots on Reddit.

I want 7850k + iGPU + 2133MHz RAM vs. 7850K + 7700 series and even a 7850 benchmarks. If the 7790 weren't GCN 1.1 it would be much easier to see how much more powerful an iGPU, by nature of being an iGPU, is.


----------



## Electroneng

Steamroller will probably be the best CPU performance increase that we will see in a long time. Intel has not done anything since Sandy. Ivy and Has-been were pitiful!


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Electroneng*
> 
> Steamroller will probably be the best CPU performance increase that we will see in a long time. Intel has not done anything since Sandy. Ivy and Has-been were pitiful!


And Broadwell isnt looking good either except for its GPU. I myself dont care though since I run big powerful GPUs to push my high res monitor. I couldn't run anything on integrated graphics, Intel or AMD.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Intel traditionally never improved the CPU for die shrinks. Sandy to Ivy was an anomaly. But yes, they need a not-crap iGPU and not-crap drivers to utilize it.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Electroneng*
> 
> Steamroller will probably be the best CPU performance increase that we will see in a long time. Intel has not done anything since Sandy. Ivy and Has-been were pitiful!


Hey! I had the copyright on Has-been, you've stolen it from me! LOL


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Seeing "zomg ln2 overclock!" before anything else scares me. It's basically advertising to go "wow look at what this chip can do _teh jiggahurtz xD_!" and if I remember correctly, we saw a lot of that before the zambezi release.


Happens with pretty much all CPUs. You can start getting worried once AMD puts out a video on their YouTube channel of Kaveri under LHe


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> LHe


Is that a thing? Are people crazy enough to do that? Liquid helium doesn't act right. I can't see it as a good coolant.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Is that a thing? Are people crazy enough to do that? Liquid helium doesn't act right. I can't see it as a good coolant.


It's usually done a couple of times a year, pretty much always done with the help of some big sponsors because just the gear needed for liquid helium is $5K+.

Some of the highest 7.1ghz ivy scores were on LHe
The original bulldozer frequency WR was on LHe
Phenom IIs were tested during launch on LHe

etc.

LHe needs to be directly applied to the CPU pot, you can't pour it like LN2. Usually you also run LN2 at the same time and pour it on top of the LHe in the pot to stop the LHe boiling away so fast.



Spoiler: usually they also make videos haha


----------



## delboy67

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Electroneng*
> 
> Steamroller will probably be the best CPU performance increase that we will see in a long time. Intel has not done anything since Sandy. Ivy and Has-been were pitiful!


What do you think of that board in your sig (extreme6)? Good experience? Its top of my list atm might pull the trigger in a few days could you give me a little review? ...


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> A10-7850k already listed on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H7Z7YMI?tag=anan06-20


And already has reviews.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> And already has reviews.


lol


----------



## yrettete

There must be several people who had it leaked to them.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

No, that guy just posted a review because why not? Troll reviews happen on every single product in existence, and entirely unhelpful ones are even more common. I like the reviews on that one trash can: "I got my new Mac Pro, but I can't find a place to plug anything in. I took it to the Apple Store but they just started throwing things in it. 1/5"


----------



## NaroonGTX

There's only one review, and I think it's just some random dude trying to hype up the processor.

People have been getting sent production samples at least since November to play around with.


----------



## yrettete

All the review says it is basically a 7770 and an i3 on one chip.

Basically what we already knew, except most people say probably a 7750.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> All the review says it is basically a 7770 and an i3 on one chip.
> 
> Basically what we already knew, except most people say probably a 7750.


There are no reviews yet? And it should be closer to a i5 and 7750


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

GCN 1.1 brought some performance boosts, so 7770-like performance is not out of the question. Comparing it to an i3 is inaccurate; i5 is better.


----------



## yrettete

but a 7750 with Mantle = 7770 or better, only for games that use Mantle of course.


----------



## NaroonGTX

That guy's review is still fairly baseless however, can't really trust it. I won't believe anything until I see what they talk about at CES '14.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There's only one review, and I think it's just some random dude trying to hype up the processor..


You can tell the review is from our friendly neighborhood troll named yrettete


----------



## nitrubbb

I wish amazon.co.uk would have preorder option too


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That guy's review is still fairly baseless however, can't really trust it. I won't believe anything until I see what they talk about at CES '14.


It's probably one of those viral advertising agencies who infiltrate social media to advertise products under the guise of being a genuine user. Too bad everyone does this and no one is aware of it.

But some of you are giving Intel way too much credit for their HEDT platforms. From Sandy to Broadwell it's basically just been marginal improvements with node shrinks.

Imagine if AMD and Nvidia came out and said, 'well, 28nm is coming to TSMC, so we're just going to release a shrunk 6000 series with a much smaller die and not change the price, and then talk about how much power we've saved. '?

The amount of rage on the internet over a company charging the same price for a significantly smaller die that had little R&D done to the actual chip would be massive, as would the amount of people going "AMD/Nvidia can't make their GPUs faster, it's over!!!!"

I never understood how Intel gets such a free pass on this.


----------



## davidelite10

So this is supposed to be better in everyway how?
From everything they released it seems they're still focusing on the wrong things.
I honestly am thinking AMD is not going for PC enthusiests anymore and just going for APUs.
As is even the 5ghz AMD chips struggle and bottleneck with high end cards such as 780 sli.
Are they still going for multiple threaded preformance since gaming is shifting that direction?
How are they going to beat intel chips at single core and multi core programs when the 9k series falls short to a i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz?
Generally curious I love AMD but I sold their stock at the right time and have no idea where they are going currently.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> *I honestly am thinking AMD is not going for PC enthusiests anymore and just going for APUs.*
> *As is even the 5ghz AMD chips struggle and bottleneck with high end cards such as 780 sli.*
> Are they still going for multiple threaded preformance since gaming is shifting that direction?
> How are they going to beat intel chips at single core and multi core programs when the 9k series falls short to a i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz?
> Generally curious I love AMD but I sold their stock at the right time and have no idea where they are going currently.


these are not mutually exclusive

thats what mantle is for - cpu won't be bottleneck with mantle anymore pretty much ever for gaming


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Is the bottleneck from the CPU being slow or from PCIe 2.0 not having enough bandwidth? PCIe 3.0 @ x8 is roughly the same as 2.0 @ x16, and Intel doesn't have enough lanes to have tri-GPU or greater setups at full speed.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> these are not mutually exclusive
> 
> thats what mantle is for - cpu won't be bottleneck with mantle anymore pretty much ever for gaming


But with mantle will the CPUs they release be able to push everything they need to?
Sure it'll eliminate GPU bottlenecking but what about core preformance?
If mantle is the end all to be all it's potraying to be wouldn't it be wise to focus on core preformance and make it comparable to Intel's chips?
Core to core it loses but how will steamroller affect this? I'd love to see AMD reach the preformance of current intel chips with this new CPU for a reasonable price which will force preformance upgrades all around for both manufacterers.
I mean going from an Athalon to a Phenom was impressive, same with a i3-i5-i7.
Intel is going the wrong route with Broadwell but I won't need to upgrade for a while anyways since they are wasting transistors for graphical processing.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> So this is supposed to be better in everyway how?
> From everything they released it seems they're still focusing on the wrong things.
> I honestly am thinking AMD is not going for PC enthusiests anymore and just going for APUs.
> As is even the 5ghz AMD chips struggle and bottleneck with high end cards such as 780 sli.
> Are they still going for multiple threaded preformance since gaming is shifting that direction?
> How are they going to beat intel chips at single core and multi core programs when the 9k series falls short to a i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz?
> Generally curious I love AMD but I sold their stock at the right time and have no idea where they are going currently.


AMD know this.

That's why they invented Mantle.

There's nothing wrong with APUs.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> So this is supposed to be better in everyway how?
> From everything they released it seems they're still focusing on the wrong things.
> I honestly am thinking AMD is not going for PC enthusiests anymore and just going for APUs.
> As is even the 5ghz AMD chips struggle and bottleneck with high end cards such as 780 sli.
> Are they still going for multiple threaded preformance since gaming is shifting that direction?
> How are they going to beat intel chips at single core and multi core programs when the 9k series falls short to a i7 4770k @ 4.5ghz?
> Generally curious I love AMD but I sold their stock at the right time and have no idea where they are going currently.


What you need to realize is that enthusiasts are such a very small market, not even a market, more an incredibly tiny niche. We are the 0.000001% compared to the normal consumers. FX was nothing more than a re-badged Opteron, just like how Intel's "Extreme" CPU's are nothing more than slightly-modified Xeons with unlocked multipliers. Just a pure afterthought mostly, which they can leverage to sell them to enthusiasts and power users rather than throwing the silicon away or having it wasted. Neither Intel nor AMD are focusing on enthusiasts, they're focusing on growth markets where they will be seeing most of their profits.

Don't count on AMD magically catching up to Intel in ST-perf anytime soon.
Quote:


> But with mantle will the CPUs they release be able to push everything they need to?
> Sure it'll eliminate GPU bottlenecking but what about core preformance?


You misunderstand. Mantle removes the *CPU* bottleneck, making the need for super-powered CPU's clocked at 6.9ghz a thing of the past. Core performance will be rendered mostly irrelevant.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Is the bottleneck from the CPU being slow or from PCIe 2.0 not having enough bandwidth? PCIe 3.0 @ x8 is roughly the same as 2.0 @ x16, and Intel doesn't have enough lanes to have tri-GPU or greater setups at full speed.


even so the Intel chips beat AMD at multi GPU setups, not making this an Intel vs AMD argument/fanboyism I use my Fx 8320 @ 4.7ghz as my video render and my Phenom II 965 @ 4.2ghz(golden chip baby) as my FTP server.
I was having so many issues with my gtx 780s till I went to intel, I brushed people away thinking they were fanboys but they were right. the 8320 at 4.7ghz can't handdle 2 gtx 780s, but my i7 4770k at 4.5ghz gave me well over 35% increase in almost all aspects.

Why can't AMD keep up with preformance granted that they are a smaller company with declining revenue but this is severely frstrating having to upgrade a board and a chip when a chip equal in cores and clocks can't handle the cards. That chip is my baby and has my custom loop on it.

I really hope AMD releases a massive increase in all aspects without wasting transisters like broadweel is going to do.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> AMD know this.
> 
> That's why they invented Mantle.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with APUs.


When they're trying to say they're still focusing a lot on desktop CPUs for gaming but mostly focus on APUs for mobile/console market is where it hurts us, the enthusiests.
Mantle sounds absolutely amazing but I have a very bad suspicion that it's going to still be slower due to processor preformance.
I mean imagine this, take a athalon II 64x 2core at 2.4ghz with xfire 290x/sli 780tis and compare it to a fx 9k, obviously the 9k will still win even Clock for clock they'll be the same.
Now let's take a i7 3770k/i5 3570k for price point matching and will we see the same results or better?
If they remove the GPU bottlenecking what's the only thing limiting preformance? It'll be ram speeds and the proccessor.
I'm hoping this is like a phenom I to II style of preformance upgrade for single core and multicore.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> What you need to realize is that enthusiasts are such a very small market, not even a market, more an incredibly tiny niche. We are the 0.000001% compared to the normal consumers. FX was nothing more than a re-badged Opteron, just like how Intel's "Extreme" CPU's are nothing more than slightly-modified Xeons with unlocked multipliers. Just a pure afterthought mostly, which they can leverage to sell them to enthusiasts and power users rather than throwing the silicon away or having it wasted. Neither Intel nor AMD are focusing on enthusiasts, they're focusing on growth markets where they will be seeing most of their profits.
> 
> Don't count on AMD magically catching up to Intel in ST-perf anytime soon.
> You misunderstand. Mantle removes the *CPU* bottleneck, making the need for super-powered CPU's clocked at 6.9ghz a thing of the past. Core performance will be rendered mostly irrelevant.


Core preformance rendered mostly irrelevant?
Do you know how graphics are displayed right? It's not all the GPU even if there was NO BOTTLENECK what happens with the cpu it just sits there?
So we'll have athalon Is running quadfire r9 290x with no preformance difference vs the fx 9k?


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> GCN 1.1 brought some performance boosts, so 7770-like performance is not out of the question. Comparing it to an i3 is inaccurate; i5 is better.


Sandy bridge i5 + GPU for $150 with cheapo mobo's


----------



## Gungnir

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Core preformance rendered mostly irrelevant?
> Do you know how graphics are displayed right? It's not all the GPU even if there was NO BOTTLENECK what happens with the cpu it just sits there?
> So we'll have athalon Is running quadfire r9 290x with no preformance difference vs the fx 9k?


Do you? That's basically one of the main points of Mantle, removing the API overhead from games, thus massively reducing the need for a high-end CPU in order to run a high-end GPU. We probably won't have Athlons running quad 290Xs anytime soon, but APUs running 290Xs and FXs having no difficulty with extreme multi-GPU setups (and looking much better than anything on DirectX) is possible.

Seriously, go read up on Mantle; it's a very exciting development for the future of gaming.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> GCN 1.1 brought some performance boosts, so 7770-like performance is not out of the question. Comparing it to an i3 is inaccurate; i5 is better.
> 
> 
> 
> Sandy bridge i5 + GPU for $150 with cheapo mobo's
Click to expand...

Okay? You can also get dual Xeons and a motherboard for under $200 if you know where to look. I'm talking current parts, and yes, I'll call the GTX 600 series and newer and Radeon HD 7000 and newer current. Trinity not so much since Richland replaced it (and they're basically the same thing). But hows about a Haswell i5 (try a P model; their iGPUs are disabled) and GPU that will perform as well as Kaveri's OR as well as Kaveri's and a dGPU in hybrid crossfire (yes, you're allowed some leeway for the latter)? Even then, Intel will get you a locked CPU.


----------



## Cyro999

I meant that it would be somewhat equivelant to; wasn't saying "get a sandy bridge i5 + GPU", sorry for confusion


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Do you? That's basically one of the main points of Mantle, removing the API overhead from games, thus massively reducing the need for a high-end CPU in order to run a high-end GPU. We probably won't have Athlons running quad 290Xs anytime soon, but APUs running 290Xs and FXs having no difficulty with extreme multi-GPU setups (and looking much better than anything on DirectX) is possible.
> 
> Seriously, go read up on Mantle; it's a very exciting development for the future of gaming.


It's great don't get me wrong but apprently you have no ideo how the CPU affects gaming, it's the buffer between the gpu and sets the clocks/speed which it synchs at along with ram/vram.
Now mantle CAN'T physically get past this since this is how it's been. CPU is also a key renderer when it comes to displaying/registering frames.

Removing one bottleneck ALWAYS opens another otherwise we'd be sittign at .5picometer dyes with 500ghz on each 200 cores with a TDP of 7 watts.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> When they're trying to say they're still focusing a lot on desktop CPUs for gaming but mostly focus on APUs for mobile/console market is where it hurts us, the enthusiests.
> Mantle sounds absolutely amazing but I have a very bad suspicion that it's going to still be slower due to processor preformance.
> I mean imagine this, take a athalon II 64x 2core at 2.4ghz with xfire 290x/sli 780tis and compare it to a fx 9k, obviously the 9k will still win even Clock for clock they'll be the same.
> Now let's take a i7 3770k/i5 3570k for price point matching and will we see the same results or better?
> If they remove the GPU bottlenecking what's the only thing limiting preformance? It'll be ram speeds and the proccessor.
> I'm hoping this is like a phenom I to II style of preformance upgrade for single core and multicore.


One of the biggest issues with multi GPU setups and FX processors is the chipset (HyperTransport limitations) and not the cpu grunt itself, did you try raise that HT while you had that FX? Other than that, one of the things mantle promises, is to make games fully multithreaded. Now, most people that talk about AMD and its low IPC ignore that it actually fluctuates and it depends on application-in fully threaded apps ,FX actually has good ipc. Will that be enough to make an FX-8350 match an i7-4770k? I have no idea but it should give FX a good all around boost.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> I meant that it would be somewhat equivelant to; wasn't saying "get a sandy bridge i5 + GPU", sorry for confusion


It's Christmas Eve Eve and I'm shooting space robots. Reading comprehension is not my priority. You are forgiven. Kaveri is probably going to be equal to Nehalem at best. We'll need to wait and see though. If AMD does manage Sandy Bridge-like performance with Carrizo, then they're in great shape. Sandy to Ivy was negligible, Ivy to Haswell was negligible, and now Haswell to Broadwell will be zero.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> One of the biggest issues with multi GPU setups and FX processors is the chipset (HyperTransport limitations) and not the cpu grunt itself, did you try raise that HT while you had that FX? Other than that, one of the things mantle promises, is to make games fully multithreaded. Now, most people that talk about AMD and its low IPC ignore that it actually fluctuates and it depends on application-in fully threaded apps ,FX actually has good ipc. Will that be enough to make an FX-8350 match an i7-4770k? I have no idea but it should give FX a good all around boost.


HT is and always been at 2600mhz where it should be.
And that's my point exactly!!
I want to know how steamroller IPC will increase along with STP/MTP will be along with mantle.
But saying that cpus are irrelevent with mantle is just plain ignorance!


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> It's Christmas Eve Eve and I'm shooting space robots. Reading comprehension is not my priority. You are forgiven. Kaveri is probably going to be equal to Nehalem at best. We'll need to wait and see though. If AMD does manage Sandy Bridge-like performance with Carrizo, then they're in great shape. Sandy to Ivy was negligible, Ivy to Haswell was negligible, and now Haswell to Broadwell will be zero.


That you have is true, mostlye due to not neading to increase IPC due to AMD not being able to match them, with this they can make sandy-e/ivy-e/haswell-e way way faster IPC would be fantastic all around!
Intel is dropping the ball on Boradwell, but with ddr4 and the '-e' series cpus things will be changing vastly, hopefully AMD will pick it up immediately unlike before where that have a 6 month lag to get it.


----------



## kzone75

Soon.. http://www.multitronic.fi/showprod.php?prod_id=AD785KXBJABOX&b=1
http://www.multitronic.fi/showprod.php?prod_id=AD770KXBJABOX&b=1


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> HT is and always been at 2600mhz where it should be.
> And that's my point exaclty!!
> I want to know how steamroller IPC will increase along with STP/MTP will be along with mantle.
> But saying that cpus are irrelevent with mantle is just plain ignorance!


OCN members have seen performance benefits from raising it above 2.6k.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1358462/fx-8350-crossfire-has-anyone-tried-overclocking-the-hyper-transport

Stoffie had a very interesting thread with 7970 CFX benchmarks.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> OCN members have seen performance benefits from raising it above 2.6k.
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1358462/fx-8350-crossfire-has-anyone-tried-overclocking-the-hyper-transport
> 
> Stoffie had a very interesting thread with 7970 CFX benchmarks.


Everytime I hit 2800mhz I'd get a weird loop every time I booted and needed to hard reset 5 times or so to get it to fully post.
I know there was a boost but even so I'd get limited by GPU preformance rather than CPU preformance even when overclocking the PCI lane buffers. that's when I realized (as sad as it was) I was being limited by my CPU.
Temps were no issues at all with my gigabyte 990fx ud3. Absolutely love that bored and has lasted me 3 chips so far, AMD P2 840, AMD P2 965, FX 8320 all with good OCs(800mhz+)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> HT is and always been at 2600mhz where it should be.
> And that's my point exactly!!
> I want to know how steamroller IPC will increase along with STP/MTP will be along with mantle.
> But saying that cpus are irrelevent with mantle is just plain ignorance!


Please stop spouting your blatant ignorance and actually read up on Mantle and how it works. Since reading doesn't seem to be your strong point, here are some pictures:


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Please stop spouting your blatant ignorance and actually read up on Mantle and how it works. Since reading doesn't seem to be your strong point, here are some pictures:


And all this did was prove my point?
Saying CPUs are irrelevant is blatantly ignorance.
Specifically look at the second image and read aloud what the CPU even with Mantle is being used for, regardless of that when they say a 8350 will be comparable to a 4770k is that clock for clock or no? Also how is comparable percentage wise? They said the same thing about the hexa series vs bloomfield that they were comparable when it was a 15% increase intel side.
I'd love to see numbers and i really hope they implement this and it's as good as they say it's going to be.
Hell I hope it beats intel if ever possible since they haven't been able to in over 8 years.
You're misunderstanding/misreadng my posts I hope this clears it up.


----------



## NaroonGTX

You're one to talk about misreading, I clearly said *mostly irrelevant*, not entirely irrelevant. Nice job ignoring how they downclocked the FX-8350 to 2.0ghz on all cores and the game was still entirely GPU-bound.


----------



## deepor

Those slides are listing stuff about their (I mean those Oxide guys') game engine and only very little about Mantle! You can't know what other developers will do with it.

Currently nearly everyone is dropping the ball on parallel programming, the games that run well are often simply running well because they manage to complete all they do on a single core. It feels like there's only a handful of games using multiple cores well.

You can't know what will change about this through looking at the marketing material that was released. You can't know how much Mantle will help for games that will still mostly use a single core on CPUs.


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> And all this did was prove my point?
> Saying CPUs are irrelevant is blatantly ignorance.
> Specifically look at the second image and read aloud what the CPU even with Mantle is being used for, regardless of that when they say a 8350 will be comparable to a 4770k is that clock for clock or no? Also how is comparable percentage wise? They said the same thing about the hexa series vs bloomfield that they were comparable when it was a 15% increase intel side.
> I'd love to see numbers and i really hope they implement this and it's as good as they say it's going to be.
> Hell I hope it beats intel if ever possible since they haven't been able to in over 8 years.
> You're misunderstanding/misreadng my posts I hope this clears it up.


for gaming theres mantle
for other stuff theres HSA


----------



## flopper

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Gungnir*
> 
> Seriously, go read up on Mantle; it's a very exciting development for the future of gaming.


its a gamechanger for amd vs Intel/Nvidia providing both cpu and gpu boosts by removing the ipc advantage Intel has makes amd 8 core suddenly just superb choice and gpu then amd cards just blast past nvidias.
its a huge deal and you will find a lot of press going to downplay it from nvidia/Intel in coming months.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> You're one to talk about misreading, I clearly said *mostly irrelevant*, not entirely irrelevant. Nice job ignoring how they downclocked the FX-8350 to 2.0ghz on all cores and the game was still entirely GPU-bound.


I never said it wasn't GPU bound in one of my posts or hinted towards it.
Still this has nothing to do whether or not their 'benchmarks' were clock for clock/what benchmarks/actual numbers.
I'm not trying to put down AMD, I play both teams and use both. I'm just skeptical since they pulled the same thing with the 5k series of cards saying it'll be a 200% preformance increase than the previous cards in 'benchmarks'.

Sorry I misread your post of 'mostly irrelevant' however it's not mostly irrelevant, apparently it still is a huge part of the gaming process as they show.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *flopper*
> 
> its a gamechanger for amd vs Intel/Nvidia providing both cpu and gpu boosts by removing the ipc advantage Intel has makes amd 8 core suddenly just superb choice and gpu then amd cards just blast past nvidias.


API=/=IPC.

And it still shows that the 8350 is slower than intel's i7 4770k if you look at their presentation.

I hope it gets better since this will change both Intel's/AMD's cpus.


----------



## computerparts

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> API=/=IPC.
> 
> And it still shows that the 8350 is slower than intel's i7 4770k if you look at their presentation.
> 
> I hope it gets better since this will change both Intel's/AMD's cpus.


Can you point out where it shows the 8350 is slower than i7 4770k? I must have missed something. If anything it would be faster since Mantle scales with actual cores and not hyperthreading.


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *computerparts*
> 
> Can you point out where it shows the 8350 is slower than i7 4770k? I must have missed something. If anything it would be faster since Mantle scales with actual cores and not hyperthreading.


Why would you assume that it scales with 2x thread on bulldozer module but not with HT? It's reasonable to expect ~6.8x scaling on a piledriver fx8350(etc), ~4x scaling on i5 and ~4.6-5x scaling on i7


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *computerparts*
> 
> Can you point out where it shows the 8350 is slower than i7 4770k? I must have missed something. If anything it would be faster since Mantle scales with actual cores and not hyperthreading.


If you look at their presentation it says '*comparable* to the i7 4770k'


----------



## imran27

What non-APU Steamroller parts will be available, since AMD has to provide at-least a quad-core non-APU part, maybe some Anthlon or something else. How will these non-APU Steamrollers compare to Steamroller APUs? Where will they see a performance lag in comparison with SR APU?

While using Mantle+HSA, what will be the performance difference between SR APU /w iGPU+dGPU in hybrid CFX vs non-APU SR+dGPU, assume that non-APU SR is the same as APU but without iGPU, and the dGPUs are same & both use a 2400 MHz RAM. So in this case how well does the SR APU perform, since this is a real-life situation that we all might face, if performance difference is not much then we can save bucks for something like a better cooling, or a better dGPU,, etc.

EDIT: Is there a possibility of a 6-core SR?? Be it APU or non APU, since SR FX CPUs are still far they are not in light now


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> What non-APU Steamroller parts will be available, since AMD has to provide at-least a quad-core non-APU part, maybe some Anthlon or something else. How will these non-APU Steamrollers compare to Steamroller APUs? Where will they see a performance lag in comparison with SR APU?
> 
> While using Mantle+HSA, what will be the performance difference between SR APU /w iGPU+dGPU in hybrid CFX vs non-APU SR+dGPU, assume that non-APU SR is the same as APU but without iGPU, and the dGPUs are same & both use a 2400 MHz RAM. So in this case how well does the SR APU perform, since this is a real-life situation that we all might face, if performance difference is not much then we can save bucks for something like a better cooling, or a better dGPU,, etc.


Cooling maybe but dGPU would benefit from the onboard iGPU. Still not sure why anyone would not want the iGPU, it doesn't preclude the use of a dGPU, but does add to the possible performance of the CPU with HSA greatly.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Technically all Steamroller chips will be APUs. Some will just have their GPUs fail to pass quality control and get disabled. We will see Athlons, just not at launch.

If the same dGPU is used but the iGPU is disabled for one, then hybrid crossfire will be better by nature of having more rendering power. Now, if you mean will a 7850k + 7750 beat, tie, or lose to a Kaveri Athlon + 7850 (equivalent amount of shaders), then that remains to be seen.


----------



## imran27

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Cooling maybe but dGPU would benefit from the onboard iGPU. Still not sure why anyone would not want the iGPU, it doesn't preclude the use of a dGPU, but does add to the possible performance of the CPU with HSA greatly.


You won't want the iGPU because you want to save bucks and get a better dGPU which will be better candidate for your expenses. Also, is HSA meant only for the APU parts, will there be any implementation for dGPU+non-APU parts.
HSA will definitely give better performance in multimedia and the likes of it, but if HSA can work with dGPU then why not get a better dGPU with the $$ saved against a non-APU, since with APU you would need a fast,veryfast RAM and you might need a bit of OC and/or voltage/timing tweaksto get that very fast frequency as against a dGPU that uses on-board VRAM specified as GDDR5, 5 GHz-6 GHz.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Not sure HSA can be used for non-APUs. There's too much latency from the CPU to the PCIe bus to the GPU to actually do things. You do want the iGPU because, even if you're running quad Titans, it can be used for floating-point calculations in parallel with the CPU.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> You won't want the iGPU because you want to save bucks and get a better dGPU which will be better candidate for your expenses. Also, is HSA meant only for the APU parts, will there be any implementation for dGPU+non-APU parts.
> HSA will definitely give better performance in multimedia and the likes of it, but if HSA can work with dGPU then why not get a better dGPU with the $$ saved against a non-APU, since with APU you would need a fast,veryfast RAM and you might need a bit of OC and/or voltage/timing tweaksto get that very fast frequency as against a dGPU that uses on-board VRAM specified as GDDR5, 5 GHz-6 GHz.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not sure HSA can be used for non-APUs. There's too much latency from the CPU to the PCIe bus to the GPU to actually do things. You do want the iGPU because, even if you're running quad Titans, it can be used for floating-point calculations in parallel with the CPU.


Correct. Although there was talk of some implementation of it for dGPUs but again the latency would probably make such an effort wasteful. Again the iGPU adds so much more value even if you do not wish to use it as your main display driver.


----------



## imran27

That makes sense, since HSA will greatlly boost the application performance and mantle+hybrid CFX will boost the gaming performance, iGPU parts seem attractive, best part is that its for and from AMD.
But it'll be great if AMD can do 6 & 8-core APU, since that's what intel has, 4-core (3570k/4670k) & 8-core (3770k/4770k) CPUs with iGPU


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> 8-core (3770k/4770k) CPUs


Nope. Theoretically, using hyperthreading, they can split the four cores into eight threads. In actuality, they can use 5-6 depending on optimization. In fact, the i7s perform worse than i5s in some scenarios thanks to hyperthreading's inherent inefficiency compared to more real cores or a "hardware hyperthread" that AMD's modular design uses.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> That makes sense, since HSA will greatlly boost the application performance and mantle+hybrid CFX will boost the gaming performance, iGPU parts seem attractive, best part is that its for and from AMD.
> But it'll be great if AMD can do 6 & 8-core APU, since that's what intel has, 4-core (3570k/4670k) & 8-core (3770k/4770k) CPUs with iGPU


Actually Intels highest consumer chip is 6 cores with an 8 core next year (supposedly if all goes according to plan). The 4770 is 4 core. They do have 8 threads with HT but still 4 cores.


----------



## imran27

By saying 8-core for intel I actually meant 4C/8T (HyperThreaded).
If there is a 6C or 8C SR APU available as the next AMD flagship then it's a worthy upgrade over the FX-CPUs/SB/Haswell parts due to HSA, Mantle & Hybrid CFX none of which is seen in the Intel CPUs, and only Mantle is seen on FX.
If AMD is pitching its APUs to make profits then it makes sense for AMD to add 2 more cores or even 4 and target it towards us, the enthusiasts rather than going for another micro-arch.
The raw power of FX+the buttery track of HSA/Mantle/Hybrid-CFX makes it hell too much attractive as an enthusiast processor. They should really think about it.
Also, in APU, the RAM has been a bottleneck, for which we needed to see 2133 or 2400 MHz RAM speeds which required a bit of manual tweaks in BIOS. In SR, while they focused on iGPU & maybe enhanced IMC, they should have thought of quad-channel. Since that's what they did with R9 290X, 512-bit VRAM at 5 GHz yielding 320 GB/s as opposed to R9 280X and below with 384-bit VRAM at 6GHz which yields 288 GB/s.

They should have done the same thing with the APUs, this would have increased the CPU as well as iGPU performance.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

There isn't enough room for another module without gimping the GPU, and we aren't a particularly large market segment. Average Joe laptop user is where the pot of gold is.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> There isn't enough room for another module without gimping the GPU, and we aren't a particularly large market segment. Average Joe laptop user is where the pot of gold is.


Average Joe laptop user doesnt need a strong GPU yet needs good battery life...

Missed the boat maybe?


----------



## Liranan

AMD claim that the iGPU in their APU's will be able to communicate with the GPU in a discrete card in time thus giving a boost to HSA beyond the mere iGPU they are putting in their chips.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> AMD claim that the iGPU in their APU's will be able to communicate with the GPU in a discrete card


Excuse me, but could you elaborate on this part? I am confused.

Are you describing a form of CrossfireX; or is this something I've never heard of before?


----------



## imran27

Does the iGPU have direct access to PCIe lanes?? I don't think so, it has to communicate through CPU or some DMA module then to the PCIe to the dGPU and the same way back, it will just reverse what HSA is intended to do, PCIe is just going to bottleneck HSA thats what I understand. As I was going through HSA resources, I only saw iGPU, no mention of dGPU is there any where.
With an iGPU there aren't any latency issues while communicating with it, just the RAM speed is a bottleneck which needs to be handled, and one way is quad channel.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> There isn't enough room for another module without gimping the GPU, and we aren't a particularly large market segment. Average Joe laptop user is where the pot of gold is.


OK so it won't fit in an FM2+ socket. But then FM2+ isn't an enthusiast taregetted, they can have it on another socket another new chipset, may-be on that new socket they'll have quad-channel. It looks a good deal for AMD and the enthusiasts as well: new socket, new chipset, extra cores, iGPU, Mantle, HSA, Hybrid CFX, quad-channel memory - this is definitely an Intel crusher, it's gonna make Intel boys (iBoys







) cry


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> With an iGPU there aren't any latency issues while communicating with it, just the RAM speed is a bottleneck which needs to be handled, and one way is quad channel.
> OK so it won't fit in an FM2+ socket. But then FM2+ isn't an enthusiast taregetted, they can have it on another socket another new chipset, may-be on that new socket they'll have quad-channel.


There are hardly enough pins on FM2+ to even account for quad channel and the amount of mobos with support for that it is staggeringly low. Methinks they won't just release an FM2++ (hehe) just to add quad channel support... Would be pretty damn risky if you ask me.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

AMD is aiming for a unified socket, and Steamroller isn't even coming to servers. They're getting a Vishera refresh.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> AMD is aiming for a unified socket, and Steamroller isn't even coming to servers. They're getting a Vishera refresh.


Steamroller isn't going to servers? But what about Berlin?

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/158901-amd-server-assault-2014-roadmap

http://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Berlin.html


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Sort of? It's essentially the same as the A10s: no dual-socket, no quad-channel, only four cores... Technically yes but it isn't a true Opteron necessarily.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Sort of? It's essentially the same as the A10s: no dual-socket, no quad-channel, only four cores... Technically yes but it isn't a true Opteron necessarily.


Ah yes, thanks for the clarification. I think it's just a chop at the mid-end server market.

I'm interested in seeing AMD's ARM initiative too, but thats for another thread.


----------



## imran27

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> AMD is aiming for a unified socket, and Steamroller isn't even coming to servers. They're getting a Vishera refresh.


So what?? Since AMD aims for a unified socket they might go for the same thing in the enthusiast market as well. Although small but we are the ones that attract other users towards AMD by showcasing our ultra-performance rigs







, we are the marketing agents of AMD, and we pay for being that we love being hat.
Moreover, the iGPU is now comparable to some R7 270, in future it might be R9 240/270 comparable, this will greatly increase the RAM bottleneck unless they go quad-channel or DDR4


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Ah yes, thanks for the clarification. I think it's just a chop at the mid-end server market.
> 
> I'm interested in seeing AMD's ARM initiative too, but thats for another thread.


Intel owns the enterprise market. >90% of servers use Xeons. Opterons, or heck, even 8350s, make for good low-traffic servers, but enterprise doesn't have the same budget limitations as consumers. What's $10 000 more for Intel CPUs and motherboards when you've spent a quarter-million on drives alone?

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> So what?? Since AMD aims for a unified socket they might go for the same thing in the enthusiast market as well. Although small but we are the ones that attract other users towards AMD by showcasing our ultra-performance rigs
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> , we are the marketing agents of AMD, and we pay for being that we love being hat.
> Moreover, the iGPU is now comparable to some R7 270, in future it might be R9 240/270 comparable, this will greatly increase the RAM bottleneck unless they go quad-channel or DDR4


They aren't making 16-core Steamroller Opterons either, and the FX series is just cut-down server chips. I have no idea which GPUs you're talking about. R9 270 is a thing, but R7 270 and R9 240 are not. Clarify please? We likely won't see DDR4 until Basilisk at the earliest. Maybe, just maybe, it'll be supported with Carrizo alongside DDR3.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> Moreover, *the iGPU is now comparable to some R7 270*, in future it might be R9 240/270 comparable, this will greatly increase the RAM bottleneck unless they go quad-channel or DDR4


Richland's IGP isnt that good, and I wouldnt trust any Kaveri numbers until it's released.

Although the RAM bottleneck now with a good memory set (2133? 2400?) isn't that bad. Remember that DDR4 isn't "inherently" better than DDR3; in the end it's all just latency and clockrate all going down the same 64-bit/128-bit memory bus. It'll be interesting to see; but I don't think DDR4 is needed quite yet. An IMC that natively supports 2400MHz is; but not DDR4.


----------



## imran27

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> I have no idea which GPUs you're talking about. R9 270 is a thing, but R7 270 and R9 240 are not. Clarify please? We likely won't see DDR4 until Basilisk at the earliest. Maybe, just maybe, it'll be supported with Carrizo alongside DDR3.


Messed up the numbers, its R7 240 & R9 240/260.
The 512-bit, 5 GHz VRAM of R9 290X was a trade-off over 384-bit, 6.5+ GHz. They required to have higher bandwidth but increasing clock speed didn't provide that much of BW enhancement moreover it increased power consumption and hence required better VRM, so they moved from 3840-bit ti 512-bit & clock was reduced to 5 GHz, this allowed better bandwidth at lower power consumption.
quad-channel is always better option till DDR4 comes up, also since Intel has already implemented it, it shows a competitive spirit for AMD to adopt quad-channel memory.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> also since Intel has already implemented it, it shows a competitive spirit for AMD to adopt quad-channel memory.


Intel only has it implemented on the E platform; which is pretty much entirely irrelevant to AMD's product line. It's out of their scope.


----------



## imran27

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Intel only has it implemented on the E platform; which is pretty much entirely irrelevant to AMD's product line. It's out of their scope.


True.
But AMD has done it with the GPU so we can't assume that AMD is not in favor of increasing memory-bus' width, they can very well do it for APU as well. It might take time to get into any future FX processor or so, but in an APU I expect that some future SR parts to have them. If not they would have them on Excavator FX


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> True.
> But AMD has done it with the GPU so we can't assume that AMD is not in favor of increasing memory-bus' width, they can very well do it for APU as well. It might take time to get into any future FX processor or so, but in an APU I expect that some future SR parts to have them. If not they would have them on Excavator FX


The FX series is not getting updated until 2015 (and even after that we arent sure.) We're stuck with Piledriver til' atleast 2015.

Of course AMD wants to increase memory bandwidth; everyone wants them to, but there are physical limitations and to be honest; memory bandwidth isnt that high of a priority at this time. With a good set of RAM, the IGP is usually performing at it's "top." IIRC I remember seeing an article in the 5800K days that showed 1600 MHz RAM doing roughly the same as 1866 MHz RAM. This is true; after a certain point, the bandwidth need is sated.

So again; quad channel and DDR4 would be nice; but they're not necessary. A good set of RAM will do fine for now.


----------



## maarten12100

So many fighting here about Intel processors still being faster with Mantle and I'm going to try to solve this by using pure logic:

Intel's 6 core 3930/3960/4930/4960 have been put to the test with Mantle so yes Intel processors have the performance crown but they also stated a couple of times the 8350 surpasses the i7 4770K a little under Mantle.

But there is no need for a high end proccesor anymore unless you are going to be running cards from 2020 with so much graphics power this is because the gain due to lower latency is simply no longer significant so while the draw calls(cpu) are super fast the waiting is for the gpu to render it all.

/logic out

I really don't get alleged Intel fanboys yelling boo at Mantle while it will benefit everyone on the cpu front maybe they are sore for any low end proccesor no longer bottlenecks relatively high end cards and they wasted money on high end stuff just to play games smooth.

And to get some relevance with Kaveri and it's Steamroller cores the reason AMD does this is so that old games that are very cpu dependant and don't have the Mantle privilege can also run good.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> So many fighting here about Intel processors still being faster with Mantle and I'm going to try to solve this by using pure logic:
> 
> Intel's 6 core 3930/3960/4930/4960 have been put to the test with Mantle so yes Intel processors have the performance crown but they also stated a couple of times the 8350 surpasses the i7 4770K a little under Mantle.
> .


But that's wrong, they said the 8350 is *Comparable* to the i7 4770k.
It's it's not an Intel vs AMD fight with earlier conversations just genuine curiosity.
I also use both.
I really want to see both increase and see AMD start being close to preformance to intel in preformance.

But this is also the wrong direction we should be going, instead of fixing things with software why aren't we moving forward with advancements with speed? This is side/downgrading rather than upgrading. But that is also my opinion.

This is a great idea I hope they see it through and make great advancements which forces intel to either make faster processors or create something to better use coding for parellel computing.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> But that's wrong, they said the 8350 is *Comparable* to the i7 4770k.
> It's it's not an Intel vs AMD fight with earlier conversations just genuine curiosity.
> I also use both.
> I really want to see both increase and see AMD start being close to preformance to intel in preformance.
> 
> But this is also the wrong direction we should be going, instead of fixing things with software why aren't we moving forward with advancements with speed? This is side/downgrading rather than upgrading. But that is also my opinion.
> 
> This is a great idea I hope they see it through and make great advancements which forces intel to either make faster processors or create something to better use coding for parellel computing.


That is amds idea is that cpu speed is far greater than software code..Meaning that at this point optimizing the software will leverage for further growth to and because they are cheaper. And can perform roughly the same. Once the software has saturated and and has bigger market share they will continue with performance then radical industry change.. Its a smart strategy as it removes bias Intel code out. At this time we don't need faster cpu. We need better optimized code.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> That is amds idea is that cpu speed is far greater than software code..Meaning that at this point optimizing the software will leverage for further growth to and because they are cheaper. And can perform roughly the same. Once the software has saturated and and has bigger market share they will continue with performance then radical industry change.. Its a smart strategy as it removes bias Intel code out. At this time we don't need faster cpu. We need better optimized code.


Like I said earlier about the parellel coding, I understand where they're going which is a great idea.
I just wish our SCP/MCP will increase along side to increase speed overall.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Like I said earlier about the parellel coding, I understand where they're going which is a great idea.
> I just wish our SCP/MCP will increase along side to increase speed overall.


Theoretically it is with each iteration of the core bd to PD to sr to ex.. Plus the igpu is also getting stronger in the apus


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Theoretically it is with each iteration of the core bd to PD to sr to ex.. Plus the igpu is also getting stronger in the apus


APUs are currently useless to me personally besides mobile market, I'm not looking for subpar and mediocre preformance with an APU xfired with a 7750.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> APUs are currently useless to me personally besides mobile market, I'm not looking for subpar and mediocre preformance with an APU xfired with a 7750.


You also are not the greater of the market share.. All chips will soon be apus.. Just wait 3 years..

Mantle and HSA will allow the igpu to do full compute to shoot to a dgpu. In short expanding core count for largely threaded performance boost

This is why they are focused on pushing software


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> You also are not the greater of the market share.. All chips will soon be apus.. Just wait 3 years..


HERESY I will not listen to your falacies ;___;
My i7 4770k/FX 8320 are stronk!








Enthusiest market will never die, look at how they tried saying the same thing back in the day with intel graphics.
I hope not a tleast.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> HERESY I will not listen to your falacies ;___;
> My i7 4770k/FX 8320 are stronk!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Enthusiest market will never die, look at how they tried saying the same thing back in the day with intel graphics.
> I hope not a tleast.


Lolz your Intel processor is an apu,


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Lolz your Intel processor is an apu,


Saying intel graphics are APUs is like calling 128mb ram more than a viable option todays standard.
Plus it's disabled, always disabled....gotta keep that 4.5ghz stable on decent volts.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Saying intel graphics are APUs is like calling 128mb ram more than a viable option todays standard.
> Plus it's disabled, always disabled....gotta keep that 4.5ghz stable on decent volts.


Never said it was good at it just saying hardware it is, which only proves that apu is the next gen compute for tasks just like x64 was


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Never said it was good at just saying hardware it is, which only proves that cpu is the next gen compute for tasks just like x64 was


Many CPUs don't have graphics that are enthusiests style oriented cpus.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Many CPUs don't have graphics that are enthusiests style oriented cpus.


You missed my point,


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> You missed my point,


No, I'm ignoriong it. I don't want to believe this is the road we're heading.
I love my 10.5 inch 780s and insanely fast 4770k I don't want small for factor and little preformance.
I love beaing able to handle a 4 pound card with the beaty of heatsink/shroud and metal.
These we're my joys since I've been building computers along with watercooling for about 12 years, best memories since I was 7 and up.
Smaller is not better!


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> But that's wrong, they said the 8350 is *Comparable* to the i7 4770k.
> It's it's not an Intel vs AMD fight with earlier conversations just genuine curiosity.
> I also use both.
> I really want to see both increase and see AMD start being close to preformance to intel in preformance.
> 
> But this is also the wrong direction we should be going, instead of fixing things with software why aren't we moving forward with advancements with speed? This is side/downgrading rather than upgrading. But that is also my opinion.
> 
> This is a great idea I hope they see it through and make great advancements which forces intel to either make faster processors or create something to better use coding for parellel computing.


No if you watch the presentation rather than just the slides you will hear that guy hinting that his 8350 is a tiny bit faster than the i7 4770K in Mantle because it is a true 8 core.
This is actually upgrading while Kaveri is not all high end processors will get a boost in cpu under Mantle there are no losers. (Nvidia users won't get a gpu boost though but at least they can enjoy the cpu boost)


----------



## Durquavian

The shear possibilities from HSA make the AMD APU a possible powerhouse. Likely wont see 6-8 core till after die shrink. This is the testing implementation phase. I understand your disdain seeing how a dGPU of nearly every caliber handily outperforms all iGPU from Intel, but AMD APUs have fairly decent iGPU when Compared to dGPUs currently available. And that strength has gotten better at a very high rate with each release. Granted these initial APUs aren't meant to counter the enthusiast market but rather find a place in the market and grow from there. The enthusiast market is quite small and not the correct place to start a revolt if you will. None of these APUs will be worthy of the obvious step down for you or me, but do shed some light on the likely they will be down the road.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> No if you watch the presentation rather than just the slides you will hear that guy hinting that his 8350 is a tiny bit faster than the i7 4770K in Mantle because it is a true 8 core.
> This is actually upgrading while Kaveri is not all high end processors will get a boost in cpu under Mantle there are no losers. (Nvidia users won't get a gpu boost though but at least they can enjoy the cpu boost)


Will it work for Nvidia at first, I mean the CPU part. Seems it would have to work for the GPU first before the CPU would see benefit.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> No if you watch the presentation rather than just the slides you will hear that guy hinting that his 8350 is a tiny bit faster than the i7 4770K in Mantle because it is a true 8 core.
> This is actually upgrading while Kaveri is not all high end processors will get a boost in cpu under Mantle there are no losers. (Nvidia users won't get a gpu boost though but at least they can enjoy the cpu boost)


Nope the 8350 is not a true 8 core, look at the architecture. Last true core they made was the 1xx0 series which were true 6 cores.
Also is it clock for clock faster? Is the 8350 OCed? Are they both stock? And at what benchmark? If they're using AMD architecture benchmarks of course it will be better, they've done that time and time again in the past. Remember when they said bulldozer was going to be 40% faster than sandybridge because of 8 core 'physical architecture'. That was hilareous.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> The shear possibilities from HSA make the AMD APU a possible powerhouse. Likely wont see 6-8 core till after die shrink. This is the testing implementation phase. I understand your disdain seeing how a dGPU of nearly every caliber handily outperforms all iGPU from Intel, but AMD APUs have fairly decent iGPU when Compared to dGPUs currently available. And that strength has gotten better at a very high rate with each release. Granted these initial APUs aren't meant to counter the enthusiast market but rather find a place in the market and grow from there. The enthusiast market is quite small and not the correct place to start a revolt if you will. None of these APUs will be worthy of the obvious step down for you or me, but do shed some light on the likely they will be down the road.


This is what I was referring to
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Will it work for Nvidia at first, I mean the CPU part. Seems it would have to work for the GPU first before the CPU would see benefit.


If I am not mistaken it will work for all hardware all mantle is is another api, with that being said there are features that will only be able to be used with and products.I think there will be a boost but not a huge boost in comparison to amd graphics.

My speculation at least


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Nope the 8350 is not a true 8 core, look at the architecture. Last true core they made was the 1xx0 series which were true 6 cores.
> Also is it clock for clock faster? Is the 8350 OCed? Are they both stock? And at what benchmark? If they're using AMD architecture benchmarks of course it will be better, they've done that time and time again in the past. Remember when they said bulldozer was going to be 40% faster than sandybridge because of 8 core 'physical architecture'. That was hilareous.


It is just what the guy in the presentation says I know it are modules and it has some shared resources.
Whatever version of Mantle Oxide used to bench but nobody knows and it is not AMD arch bench it is universal since they also tested a Intel 6 core as I stated earlier
Both at factory clocks for the 8350 and 4770K.

Yeah I remember but that is not what I'm disscusing I'm talking Mantle also if they didn't encounter all those shared resources bottlenecks and their branch prediction didn't fail so hard they would've actually made that. (but their engineers were already telling us that there were some super deficiancies in the design that needed to be sorted)

By Excavator most of that should be sorted though.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Will it work for Nvidia at first, I mean the CPU part. Seems it would have to work for the GPU first before the CPU would see benefit.


It should though I'm not sure for BF4 in particular but with most well know game devs jumping I suppose they will also support cpu for Nvidia cards.
It is AMD we're talking not Nvidia's Physx downlock when AMD card is present and a dedicated Physx card is there.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Nope the 8350 is not a true 8 core, look at the architecture. Last true core they made was the 1xx0 series which were true 6 cores.
> Also is it clock for clock faster? Is the 8350 OCed? Are they both stock? And at what benchmark? If they're using AMD architecture benchmarks of course it will be better, they've done that time and time again in the past. Remember when they said bulldozer was going to be 40% faster than sandybridge because of 8 core 'physical architecture'. That was hilareous.


ZOmg intelz roolz b001 to @mdz chips boooooooooooooooooooo

Clock for clock doesn't quite apply as the architectures are vastly different

They are true 8 cores they however do share resources such as cache which is entirely different than hyper threading

Everyone knows bulldozer was a flop, but look at piledriver pretty sure its a decent chip

Dear sir, I see we have a troll a brewin


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> ZOmg intelz roolz b001 to @mdz chips boooooooooooooooooooo
> 
> Clock for clock doesn't quite apply as the architectures are vastly different
> 
> They are true 8 cores they however do share resources such as cache which is entirely different than hyper threading
> 
> Everyone knows bulldozer was a flop, but look at piledriver pretty sure its a decent chip
> 
> Dear sir, I see we have a troll a brewin


Clearly you misunderstand everything that I've written out, let me clear it up for you.
I want to know statistics they are both stock as found out from a earlier post, so 4.0ghz vs 3.5ghz that's a key part of information.
I use both AMD and Intel I'm am not biased or a fanboy.
Piledriver was a flop, I'm not basing the company off one chip, they hype all their chips unproportianlly for over 10 years.
Shared recources means they are not seperate cores it's the same as having two hampster on one wheel, it's two hampsters sharing the wheel they can't run as far left or right as they would alone.
It's not just an AMD bench so that's good it means it's not partial.
I'm loving my 8320 it was a great chip till the bottleneck.
We have to wait till 2015 from AMD to get a chip viable to vishera/piledriver in preformance but why?

I'm not a troll nor is any of my posts trying to say LEL INTEL GUUDAR, I'm trying to figure out how this is actually going to change everything preformance wise for all sides of the market, AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.

Now back on topic since you tried misplacing my facts/questions.
Did they produce any exact scores yet in benchmarks?
Any anouncements how this will be affected by DDR4?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Clearly you misunderstand everything that I've written out, let me clear it up for you.
> I want to know statistics they are both as found from earlier post, so 4.0ghz vs 3.5ghz that's a key part of information.
> I use both AMD and Intel I'm am not biased or a fanboy.
> Piledriver was a flop, I'm not basing the company off one chip, they hype all their chips unproportianlly for over 10 years.
> Shared recources means they are not seperate cores it's the same as having two hampster on one wheel, it's two hampsters sharing the wheel they can't run as far left or right as they would alone.
> It's not just an AMD bench so that's good it means it's not partial.
> I'm loving my 8320 it was a great chip till the bottleneck.
> We have to wait till 2015 from AMD to get a chip viable to vishera/piledriver in preformance but why?
> 
> I'm not a troll nor is any of my posts trying to say LEL INTEL GUUDAR, I'm trying to figure out how this is actually going to change everything preformance wise for all sides of the market, AMD, Nvidia, and Intel.
> 
> Now back on topic since you tried misplacing my facts/questions.
> Did they produce any exact scores yet in benchmarks?
> Any anouncements how this will be affected by DDR4?


Right now we only have few leaked benches that are not able to be confirmed and PR

As for ddr4 as stated that will not be here for at least another year or longer


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Right now we only have few leaked benches that are not able to be confirmed and PR
> 
> As for ddr4 as stated that will not be here for at least another year or longer


There we go, relevant information. See that wasn't so hard now was it.
DDR4 is technically here with no chipset that can support it but broadwell and on will be supporting it.
DDR4 stock is anywhere to be from 2400-2866mhz. They have reached 4200mhz with it so far so that'll be better with mantle.
I wonder if this will allow 16gb+ ram be utilized now along with speeds such as BF4 loves it.

Sorry if I came off like a donkey but that was frustrating.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> There we go, relevant information. See that wasn't so hard now was it.
> DDR4 is technically here with no chipset that can support it but broadwell and on will be supporting it.
> DDR4 stock is anywhere to be from 2400-2866mhz. They have reached 4200mhz with it so far so that'll be better with mantle.
> I wonder if this will allow 16gb+ ram be utilized now along with speeds such as BF4 loves it.
> 
> Sorry if I came off like a donkey but that was frustrating.


I see amds huma being what utilizes more ram, although I still wish I had 32 GB or even 64 to load either games or is functions into ramdisk


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Will it work for Nvidia at first, I mean the CPU part. Seems it would have to work for the GPU first before the CPU would see benefit.


At first, Mantle will only be available for systems that run GCN graphics. AMD and DICE said that mantle as an API, isn't really tied to GCN and that other graphics vendors can tune their products to work with it. There is a huge catch though. The main benefit of mantle will be its low level layer that can only work on a certain type of GPU arch. GCN is in both consoles and will get support - EA, the biggest games publisher is already backing AMD mantle full force,square enix is big too and backs it up as well. If nvidia bites and supports mantle, are devs gonna bother to use the equivalent low level layer for nvidia if there is no console benefit to be had? I say nope, and my guess is that nvidia not only isn't gonna back up mantle at all, but it will actively fight it and push deals with PC exclusive games instead (the type of games that don't get ported to or from consoles). Else it is gonna help the market to widely adopt mantle and give Radeons a performance edge in the process.Not gonna happen. So I can't see geforces using mantle any time soon, actually not at all, nvidia has to be forced into going there.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I see amds huma being what utilizes more ram, although I still wish I had 32 GB or even 64 to load either games or is functions into ramdisk


I would put bf4 on a ramdisk but my 32gb isn't enough, I do use it for certain programs though.


----------



## delboy67

I dont think nvidia users are gona see any benefit from mantle either gpu or cpu side until they jump 'on board' with amd/mantle and as I've said from the start the real 'winners' with mantle will be guys with low end cpus and even mobile/laptops. I look forward to seeing how my 'little' trinity performs with a high/mid range card in a mantle game which would otherwise be bottlenecked stupid, hope I've enough time and spare hardware to test next year.
The term 'core' has no definition and its subjective wether an fx 8*** is a true octocore, I'd say yes it is but takes a small hit from shared resources 15-20% when using 2 'cores' on the same module.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> ZOmg intelz roolz b001 to @mdz chips boooooooooooooooooooo
> 
> Clock for clock doesn't quite apply as the architectures are vastly different
> 
> They are true 8 cores they however do share resources such as cache which is entirely different than hyper threading


They share a helluva lot more than just cache. All three pipelines (two integer pipelines and one SIMD) all share the same instruction fetch unit, the same 16 entry pre-decode cache, the exact same four-way decoder, the same dispatch buffer and the same 128-entry retirement queue. They share the same caches aside from L1D and the two integer pipelines even share the same SIMD pipeline. That's a lot of sharing. It's like saying a car with two engines is two cars. The truth is that they do duplicate the heart of the core (the integer and memory pipelines), but the entire front end and ever-growing-in-use SIMD pipeline gets shafted. And dont think that these resources are beefed up to take into account the extra integer pipeline-- they hardly are.

It's not a question of whether one is a core or not; because it's so different from that. It's not a form of SMT, and it's not a form of creating another core despite what the naming suggests. It's something completely different. I prefer to just refer to them by their actual given name: FX modules. Cores is overused and ambiguised anyways anyways; some people call Hyperthreading a way of making "virtual" or "logical" cores when it doesnt do either. Core is such a dated term anyways; as enthusiasts we should be using the names their creators gave them. We've been in a new era of "core" anyways; a core was always considered a thread; a set of components that could deal with sequentially issued instructions; but now we have "cores" that can execute two threads (and therefore to sequential orders of instructions) at the same time through two entirely different implementations.

It's a better idea to just come to terms with what the actual implementation is instead of bickering about whether x is a core or y is a core since the term doesn't really apply anymore. Both designs are capable of executing two threads at once through night-and-day-different means.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> DDR4 stock is anywhere to be from 2400-2866mhz. They have reached 4200mhz with it so far so that'll be better with mantle.


DDR4 reaching 4200 MHz? Source? I've only ever seen 3600 MHz.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I think "supercore" might be a better term for AMD's modules. You can have any natural number of modules, but only an even number of threads from the integer cores. They aren't true cores since there is some stuff shared between the two cores in a given module. It is, however, inaccurate to label an FX-4000 or A10 APU a dualcore, and quadcore is poor description of the FX-8000 chips. Intel is still using true cores, but they have a software/firmware level implementation to get more threads out of them.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

I wasn't meaning to downplay.. More was trying to show an example that they vastly different architecture

I feel that both of you are right, however in comparison it is closer to a true core than hyperthreading which allows more threads to be parsed, until true multithreading fully takes effect,

Regardless, what would be the industry standard be to call them as pointed out no longer fits either term


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Intel is still using true cores, but they have a software/firmware level implementation to get more threads out of them.


HyperThreading is not a software implementation nor a firmware implementation. It's hardcoded into the CPU itself. There's no updating or changing that puppy







You can turn it off if you like though.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I wasn't meaning to downplay.. More was trying to show an example that they vastly different architecture
> 
> I feel that both of you are right, however in comparison it is closer to a true core than hyperthreading which allows more threads to be parsed, until true multithreading fully takes effect,
> 
> Regardless, what would be the industry standard be to call them as pointed out no longer fits either term


That's the thing though; HyperThreading was never aimed to be a way of extracting "more cores", it was implemented to do exactly what it's name implies. Increase the number of threads-- NOT cores.

FX modules shouldnt have been after that either really; but then they named their FX chips by the integer pipeline and not by the FX modules; a weird, and unexpected move by AMD. Was it the right move? From a marketting standpoint to normal consumers; yes. To enthusiasts; no.

And actually; while FX modules are closer to adding an additional _core_, HyperThreading is a tried and true method of simultaneous, superscalar multithreading. FX Modules aren't; while the result is an extra thread and integer/memory pipeline, it's not a true form of SMT. It really isnt a true form of anything; it's itself. Something entirely new. It's like trying to explain what dry land is to a tadpole; you can use terms that are associated with water-- it simply wont understand with comfortable terms. It is something new entirely.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> HyperThreading is not a software implementation nor a firmware implementation. It's hardcoded into the CPU itself. There's no updating or changing that puppy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can turn it off if you like though.


Right, but there isn't any hardware that leads to more threads. It's an instruction set that allows a single core to split into two threads. Basically, I can't punch Intel's version of MOAR CORES in the face.

Quote:


> And actually; while FX modules are closer to adding an additional _core_, HyperThreading is a tried and true method of simultaneous, superscalar multithreading. FX Modules aren't; while the result is an extra thread and integer/memory pipeline, it's not a true form of SMT. It really isnt a true form of anything; it's itself. Something entirely new. It's like trying to explain what dry land is to a tadpole; you can use terms that are associated with water-- it simply wont understand with comfortable terms. It is something new entirely.


Only problem with HT is its inefficiency. The only way to get more threads and have them all run at 100% speed is to add more physical cores. Now, you can argue that servers are better off with an inefficient split because they need that kind of multitasking capability, but it just doesn't work as well as the alternative. It is, however, significantly cheaper and with the right optimization can run at a much higher efficiency than what the typical end-user sees out of their i3s or i7s.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> HyperThreading is not a software implementation nor a firmware implementation. It's hardcoded into the CPU itself. There's no updating or changing that puppy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can turn it off if you like though.
> 
> That's the thing though; HyperThreading was never aimed to be a way of extracting "more cores", it was implemented to do exactly what it's name implies. Increase the number of threads-- NOT cores.
> 
> FX modules shouldnt have been after that either really; but then they named their FX chips by the integer pipeline and not by the FX modules; a weird, and unexpected move by AMD. Was it the right move? From a marketting standpoint to normal consumers; yes. To enthusiasts; no.
> 
> And actually; while FX modules are closer to adding an additional _core_, HyperThreading is a tried and true method of simultaneous, superscalar multithreading. FX Modules aren't; while the result is an extra thread and integer/memory pipeline, it's not a true form of SMT. It really isnt a true form of anything; it's itself. Something entirely new. It's like trying to explain what dry land is to a tadpole; you can use terms that are associated with water-- it simply wont understand with comfortable terms. It is something new entirely.


Agreed though I think it is a more well thought out alternative to the thread monsters Intel puts out. But with all the shared bottlenecks it performs better than HT but not as well as it should.

Poorly executed to say the least but steamroller and excavator are the point where those problems become largely solved and then we'll see what should have been a die shrink of Bulldozer.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> HyperThreading is not a software implementation nor a firmware implementation. It's hardcoded into the CPU itself. There's no updating or changing that puppy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can turn it off if you like though.
> 
> That's the thing though; HyperThreading was never aimed to be a way of extracting "more cores", it was implemented to do exactly what it's name implies. Increase the number of threads-- NOT cores.
> 
> FX modules shouldnt have been after that either really; but then they named their FX chips by the integer pipeline and not by the FX modules; a weird, and unexpected move by AMD. Was it the right move? From a marketting standpoint to normal consumers; yes. To enthusiasts; no.
> 
> And actually; while FX modules are closer to adding an additional _core_, HyperThreading is a tried and true method of simultaneous, superscalar multithreading. FX Modules aren't; while the result is an extra thread and integer/memory pipeline, it's not a true form of SMT. It really isnt a true form of anything; it's itself. Something entirely new. It's like trying to explain what dry land is to a tadpole; you can use terms that are associated with water-- it simply wont understand with comfortable terms. It is something new entirely.


What the?? The ignorance in your posts is astounding. Have you ever seen a die shot of AMD's FX CPU's? There are 8 physical cores. You can call them snowmen, reindeer or whatever takes your fancy but they are actual cores.

FX8350


FX8150


Your premise of them not being cores is you simply not wanting to accept, believe or whatever but it definitely isn't grounded in reality.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Right, but there isn't any hardware that leads to more threads. It's an instruction set that allows a single core to split into two threads. Basically, I can't punch Intel's version of MOAR CORES in the face.
> Only problem with HT is its inefficiency. The only way to get more threads and have them all run at 100% speed is to add more physical cores. Now, you can argue that servers are better off with an inefficient split because they need that kind of multitasking capability, but it just doesn't work as well as the alternative. It is, however, significantly cheaper and with the right optimization can run at a much higher efficiency than what the typical end-user sees out of their i3s or i7s.


HyperThreading is not an instruction set; nor is it an extension. It is a hardware implementation that the ReOrder Buffer handles entirely on it's own. The "program counter" might ring a bell. It does require the programmer to program multiple threads for it to be effective, but it doesn't require a special ISA extension. However, it's possible I'm incorrect of course, so do you have a source stating that your implementation is so? My source is: ( http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/01/77/17705_htt_user_guide.pdf ). There are compilers and other software tools that can be used to utilise HyperThreading more effectively, but at the end of the day; the program counter is the boss.

Also, HyperThreading does run 2 cores at 100% speed in a clockrate sense. The only source of HT's inefficiencies are with the fact that at the end of the day, it's only one core you're running two threads on. The ALUs will always be swamped. The LSUs will always be swamped. The cache will always be swamped swapping in and out data and instructions. Whether you have one or two threads doesnt change that; so whatever way you split it, you don't get much improvement from adding a thread over an existing thread that is already taxing the resources of a core massively anyways.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Agreed though I think it is a more well thought out alternative to the thread monsters Intel puts out. But with all the shared bottlenecks it performs better than HT but not as well as it should.
> 
> Poorly executed to say the least but steamroller and excavator are the point where those problems become largely solved and then we'll see what should have been a die shrink of Bulldozer.


It'll run much better with Steamroller. It seems that FX modules are starting to duplicate their cores by way of mitosis... Slowly separating the decoder pipeline to start with. It'll be interesting to see how these things go.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> What the?? The ignorance in your posts is astounding. Have you ever seen a die shot of AMD's FX CPU's? There are 8 physical cores. You can call them snowmen, reindeer or whatever takes your fancy but they are actual cores.


Not this again.

The die shot shows the two separated integer pipelines and memory pipelines. Nothing else is separated. Do you have a source to backup your claims, because I have a source to back up mine: ( http://www.realworldtech.com/bulldozer/10/ )

As you can see from the block diagram, that would be considered one "core." The extra core comes from a duplication of the integer and memory pipeline. As dictated here: ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/3863/amd-discloses-bobcat-bulldozer-architectures-at-hot-chips-2010/4 )


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Not this again.
> 
> The die shot shows the two separated integer pipelines and memory pipelines. Nothing else is separated. Do you have a source to backup your claims, because I have a source to back up mine: ( http://www.realworldtech.com/bulldozer/10/ )
> 
> As you can see from the block diagram, that would be considered one "core." The extra core comes from a duplication of the integer and memory pipeline. As dictated here: ( http://www.anandtech.com/show/3863/amd-discloses-bobcat-bulldozer-architectures-at-hot-chips-2010/4 )


Not this again...

I edited my post to show you are spouting ignorance. There are eight separate caches feeding eight separate cores. That is one indication they are actual cores, that is apart from the obvious cores themselves, which are clearer to see on the 8350 than the 8150.

You actually linked the Anand article I got the shot from and they clearly have the cores numbered.

Now you are wilfully ignorant.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> Not this again...
> 
> I edited my post to show you are spouting ignorance. There are eight separate caches feeding eight separate cores. That is one indication they are actual cores, that is apart from the obvious cores themselves, which are clearer to see on the 8350 than the 8150.


Those separated caches are the L1D caches. The L1I and L2 caches are shared. I did before point out that the L1D caches are separated. I can go find where I said it if you need it to be found.

EDIT: Source: ( http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Series%20FX-8350.html )

Note:

"4 x 64 KB shared instruction caches
8 x 16 KB data caches"


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, there's literally 8 physical cores on the die of an FX/Opteron chip. Yes, the architecture is basically an updated/re-imagined version of DEC's old Alpha 21264 chip architecture, and it's pretty different from anything, but it makes no sense to overthink whether or not they're "real" cores or not. Yeah, they share resources, but they're still individual cores. It's not deceptive marketing or any rocket science. If it weren't for the shared decoder in BD and PD, we would've had the same performance scaling as CMP, a la Phenom II or Sandy Bridge, but since the decode was too narrow, scaling was only around 80% of CMP instead (at full load.) Steamroller fixes that.

Regardless, this is a little silly to be discussing yet again here, lol. There may as well be a CMT thread made. This is psuedo-off topic.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Those separated caches are the L1D caches. The L1I and L2 caches are shared. I did before point out that the L1D caches are separated. I can go find where I said it if you need it to be found.
> 
> EDIT: Source: ( http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Series%20FX-8350.html )
> 
> Note:
> 
> "4 x 64 KB shared instruction caches
> 8 x 16 KB data caches"


How about we stop here and maybe you can state what your trying to prove/point out or where you are headed. I am having a hard time trying to figure out what your aim is.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Those separated caches are the L1D caches. The L1I and L2 caches are shared. I did before point out that the L1D caches are separated. I can go find where I said it if you need it to be found.
> 
> EDIT: Source: ( http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-FX-Series%20FX-8350.html )
> 
> Note:
> 
> "4 x 64 KB shared instruction caches
> 8 x 16 KB data caches"


My old Q6600 had 2x2 core CPU's on the die which each had their own cache and were connected. Are you saying that the QXXXX CPU's weren't quad core because they shared certain resources?

How about either Intel or AMD make a CPU that shares the same very large cache? Are you going to say there is only one core because they share the same resources?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> How about we stop here and maybe you can state what your trying to prove/point out or where you are headed. I am having a hard time trying to figure out what your aim is.


My point, as stated before, isnt to distinct whether the 8350 has 8 cores or 4 since the term is subjective and people will simply never get along.

My aim is to simply label them as "four modules"; and leave it at that since cores isnt really applicable here. It's not arguable whether the 8350 has four modules or not-- it does.

I'm not trying to say "x CPU has only 1.5 cores in comparison to y" or "x CPU's cores are better/worse than y's CPU." I'm just trying to point out that naming them cores doesn't really work. They're something completely different from what we're used to and they should just be called the names their creators gave them: modules. I said that awhile back.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> My old Q6600 had 2x2 core CPU's on the die which each had their own cache and were connected. Are you saying that the QXXXX CPU's weren't quad core because they shared certain resources?
> 
> How about either Intel or AMD make a CPU that shares the same very large cache? Are you going to say there is only one core because they share the same resources?


Only sharing caches isn't really anything "new" architecture wise. It's been done a lot. No one is arguing whether they were distinct cores or not because they never shared as many resources as the Bulldozer/Piledriver design.

I'm not on either side of the "8350 is a quad core" or "8350 is an octo core" team. I'm just saying either name doesnt really suit it. Four modules does though.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> My old Q6600 had 2x2 core CPU's on the die which each had their own cache and were connected. Are you saying that the QXXXX CPU's weren't quad core because they shared certain resources?
> 
> How about either Intel or AMD make a CPU that shares the same very large cache? Are you going to say there is only one core because they share the same resources?


Or using previous analogy two engines share a gas tank still is two engines.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> My point, as stated before, isnt to distinct whether the 8350 has 8 cores or 4 since the term is subjective and people will simply never get along.
> 
> My aim is to simply label them as "four modules"; and leave it at that since cores isnt really applicable here. It's not arguable whether the 8350 has four modules or not-- it does.
> 
> I'm not trying to say "x CPU has only 1.5 cores in comparison to y" or "x CPU's cores are better/worse than y's CPU." I'm just trying to point out that naming them cores doesn't really work. They're something completely different from what we're used to and they should just be called the names their creators gave them: modules. I said that awhile back.


But then you end with the result that 1 module = 2 cores and then we are back to 8 cores.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Or using previous analogy two engines share a gas tank still is two engines.


Yes. Two engines. Not two cars. It's arguably the most important part of the car but it isnt the car.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> But then you end with the result that 1 module = 2 cores and then we are back to 8 cores.


IF your subjective definition of a core is it's integer pipeline, memory pipeline and L1D, then yes. It is 8 cores. However, that's not the (subjective) definition.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

I'll go with wiki on this which puts it as 8 cores
Quote:


> A multi-core processor is a single computing component with two or more independent actual central processing units (called "cores"), which are the units that read and execute program instructions.[1] The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions such as add, move data, and branch, but the multiple cores can run multiple instructions at the same time, increasing overall speed for programs amenable to parallel computing.[2] Manufacturers typically integrate the cores onto a single integrated circuit die (known as a chip multiprocessor or CMP), or onto multiple dies in a single chip package.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> DDR4 reaching 4200 MHz? Source? I've only ever seen 3600 MHz.


http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51342-gskill-ddr4-ram-with-speeds-of-4266-mhz-unveiled-11-12v/

here you go bud, blew my mind.
GSkill is leading the industry.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> IF your subjective definition of a core is it's integer pipeline, memory pipeline and L1D, then yes. It is 8 cores. However, that's not the (subjective) definition.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *abinstein*
> To be more precise, a processor can be partitioned into the following functional units: data cache, instruction data, { control unit, instruction bus, data bus, (integer) datapath } and (floating point) accelerator datapath. Those inside the {} above form a "core". You may ask: why is integer datapath special? Because any process (thread + memory context) is *always* managed by the integer datapath. Any branch instruction, ILP, OOO, speculation, is performed by the integer datapath.
> 
> So the question to ask is how many sets of the {} above does a Bulldozer module have? The answer is 2. There are two cores. This has nothing to do with marketing. It's a technical definition.


http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=215011#p215011


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51342-gskill-ddr4-ram-with-speeds-of-4266-mhz-unveiled-11-12v/
> 
> here you go bud, blew my mind.
> GSkill is leading the industry.


Wow... Over 34GB/s of bandwidth... That's... Amazing. I wonder what the latency and voltage numbers are like; but either way that's insanity...


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Yes. Two engines. Not two cars. It's arguably the most important part of the car but it isnt the car.
> IF your subjective definition of a core is it's integer pipeline, memory pipeline and L1D, then yes. It is 8 cores. However, that's not the (subjective) definition.


This is the best wauy explained in this thred so far.
Still wondering why people are having difficulties understanding this.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> This is the best wauy explained in this thred so far.
> Still wondering why people are having difficulties understanding this.


How about you check the post Seronx just made, which blows all this speculative theoretical nonsense out of the water?


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Wow... Over 34GB/s of bandwidth... That's... Amazing. I wonder what the latency and voltage numbers are like; but either way that's insanity...


Yup imagine saturating that as a ram disk with the projected 128gb supported. BF4 would load faster than the game can log you in.
Absolutely insane.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=215011#p215011


Every instruction _is_ dictated by the integer datapath, but that's not to say there aren't other components associated commonly with the integer datapath, that, have almost always been univesally been grouped together. eg. fetch pipeline, decode pipeline; etc.

The person whom you quoted on the forum does use good logic to distinct the most important part of the core, but the other components aren't an after thought.

*You guys are all pinning me as if I'm saying "The 8350 isnt an octo core"... That's not what I'm saying.* At all. I've never said it's a quad or octo core; I'm just saying *since not everyone will agree, why not just call them by something that is objective? Modules.*

Edit: Im not even sure what we're arguing about to be honest here. You're saying an orange is round, and I'm saying an orange is the colour orange. Both statements are true.

The 8350 has four modules. True.
The 8350 has 8 cores. While subjective this can also be true depending on the interpretation of the word's loose definition.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Every instruction _is_ dictated by the integer datapath, but that's not to say there aren't other components associated commonly with the integer datapath, that, have almost always been univesally been grouped together. eg. fetch pipeline, decode pipeline; etc.
> 
> The person whom you quoted on the forum does use good logic to distinct the most important part of the core, but the other components aren't an after thought.
> 
> *You guys are all pinning me as if I'm saying "The 8350 isnt an octo core"... That's not what I'm saying.* At all. I've never said it's a quad or octo core; I'm just saying *since not everyone will agree, why not just call them by something that is objective? Modules.*


Probably because you could only use that definition with AMD and not Intel making any attempt to compare even harder.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> How about you check the post Seronx just made, which blows all this speculative theoretical nonsense out of the water?


By what standard? It still shows that even 'experts' on AMD architectures are STILL arguing about this.
By what the two main poster were saying, the same standards can be put to intel making hyperthreading 2 cores.
By the 'experts' definitions of what they see cores as, the i7s are also 8 cores, which makes the Intel company wrong by labling THEIR products quadcores.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> By what standard? It still shows that even 'experts' on AMD architectures are STILL arguing about this.
> By what the two main poster were saying, the same standards can be put to intel making hyperthreading 2 cores.
> By the 'experts' definitions of what they see cores as, the i7s are also 8 cores, which makes the Intel company wrong by labling THEIR products quadcores.


Technically then one must decide on the definition by output or by actual architecture. In the maps Intel is definitely a 4 core and AMD 8350 an 8 core regardless of how software is implemented.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Probably because you could only use that definition with AMD and not Intel making any attempt to compare even harder.


Exactly true. It is hard to compare them by by "cores", which is why everyone is still scratching their heads as to how to line up and compare a Piledriver "core" to an Intel one. Do you go just by the integer pipelines? But then if you throw HyperThreading into the mix, you get two threads on one while the other has two integer pipelines-- but then what about SIMD instructions? Two "cores" get paired with one SIMD pipeline? But in the other one...

It's really quite confusing which is why I'm saying "Let's agree to disagree and say modules."


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> I'm just saying *since not everyone will agree, why not just call them by something that is objective? Modules.*


Calling a monolithic dual core block that supports two threads of execution, a module is redundant.

A module is two cores, and the FX-8xxx/9xxx is eight-cores and the A10-57+/67+ is four-cores.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> By what standard? It still shows that even 'experts' on AMD architectures are STILL arguing about this.
> By what the two main poster were saying, the same standards can be put to intel making hyperthreading 2 cores.
> By the 'experts' definitions of what they see cores as, the i7s are also 8 cores, which makes the Intel company wrong by labling THEIR products quadcores.


Regardless the people that are arguing in this thread are both right depending on what difinition you consider cores to be.
Since this is all off topic :notontopic:

Since DDR4 is already reaching 4266mhz will our CPUs now bee the limiting factor? How will we go about balancing ram speeds and cpu speeds? Which take more precidence?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Yup imagine saturating that as a ram disk with the projected 128gb supported. BF4 would load faster than the game can log you in.
> Absolutely insane.


With densities up to 16GB a stick?

As a mobile user, the prospect of having 32 GB of RAM in a laptop with 24 GB of it being a RAMDisk is pretty staggering... With that I could literally turn off my hard drive and never need it to boot up ever again for the entire run time as long as all I ever use is the browser since I can load all windows files and a browser into the RAMDisk with ease...

That battery life.


----------



## NaroonGTX

It's not confusing at all, it's just silly, boring, and off-topic. Someone make a CMT thread or whatever, let's not clutter this thread up with OT banter.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Calling a monolithic dual core block that supports two threads of execution, a module is redundant.
> 
> A module is two cores, and the FX-8xxx/9xxx is eight-cores and the A10-57+/67+ is four-cores.


Not to shoot you down, but the source you listed is a guy talking on a forum. Sure, he uses good logic and I do agree that he highlights good points; but his word isnt the end-all be-all. Another user previously posted a wiki excerpt to the definition of a core, and that would be a "hard" definition; however it still has plenty of room for interpretation.

Also; it doesn't support two threads of SIMD execution whether the integer pipelines dictate or not. SIMD is a big deal.

Also, whether it's redundant or not is irrelevant. It's objective, clean, and true.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> With densities up to 16GB a stick?
> 
> As a mobile user, the prospect of having 32 GB of RAM in a laptop with 24 GB of it being a RAMDisk is pretty staggering... With that I could literally turn off my hard drive and never need it to boot up ever again for the entire run time as long as all I ever use is the browser since I can load all windows files and a browser into the RAMDisk with ease...
> 
> That battery life.


They can fit over 32gb on a stick due to the density theoretically.
Not even just 32gb on a laptop, we're hitting 16 currently with 4 modules on some laptops. we're looking at 64gbs.
*64gbs!!!!! AT 4200mhz!!!!*
you can ramdisk almost all your applications and some games with that ON A LAPTOP.


----------



## Alatar

Guys. Back to relevant steamroller discussion or we'll have to start deleting posts.

A little off topic is fine but this is starting to get out of hand.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It's not confusing at all, it's just silly, boring, and off-topic. Someone make a CMT thread or whatever, let's not clutter this thread up with OT banter.


It is essential because the Steamroller module block breaks away from the Bulldozer module block.

In Bulldozer, the branch to decode are coarse-grain threaded and the FPU as well is also coarse-grain threaded. (VMT to some of you)

In Steamroller, the branch to decode are symmetrically threaded as well as the FPU. (SMT to some of you)


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Guys. Back to relevant steamroller discussion or we'll have to start deleting posts.
> 
> A little off topic is fine but this is starting to get out of hand.


Is DDr4/Mantle/Steamroller combined discussion okay?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It is essential because the Steamroller module block breaks away from the Bulldozer module block.
> 
> In Bulldozer, the branch to decode are coarse-grain threaded and the FPU as well is also coarse-grain threaded. (VMT to some of you)
> 
> In Steamroller, the branch to decode are symmetrically threaded as well as the FPU. (SMT to some of you)


Just out of curiousity, but I haven't seen a slide for it yet; how wide is each decoder of the two decoders in a Steamroller module? Is it four-wide just as with PD?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Just out of curiousity, but I haven't seen a slide for it yet; how wide is each decoder of the two decoders in a Steamroller module? Is it four-wide just as with PD?


In Bulldozer/Piledriver you have two 2-wide decoders(1-1-1-1 or 2-1-1 or 2-2). In Steamroller/Excavator you have four 2-wide decoders(1-1-1-1+1-1-1-1 or 2-1-1+2-1-1 or 2-2+2-2 these can be asymmetric like 2-2+1-1-1-1/etc).


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> In Bulldozer/Piledriver you have two 2-wide decoders(1-1-1-1 or 2-1-1 or 2-2). In Steamroller/Excavator you have four 2-wide decoders(1-1-1-1+1-1-1-1 or 2-1-1+2-1-1 or 2-2+2-2 these can be asymmetric like 2-2+1-1-1-1/etc).


Ah so it will be a literal doubling. That's great news!


----------



## NaroonGTX

@other dude

Mantle doesn't really have anything to do with Steamroller, and DDR4 isn't really relevant either since no Steamroller-based product will use it.


----------



## computerparts

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Shared recources means they are not seperate cores it's the same as having two hampster on one wheel, it's two hampsters sharing the wheel they can't run as far left or right as they would alone.
> It's not just an AMD bench so that's good it means it's not partial.
> I'm loving my 8320 it was a great chip till the bottleneck.
> We have to wait till 2015 from AMD to get a chip viable to vishera/piledriver in preformance but why?
> 
> Now back on topic since you tried misplacing my facts/questions.
> Did they produce any exact scores yet in benchmarks?
> Any anouncements how this will be affected by DDR4?


Not sure how PD was a flop but to each their own. There are things I can do with my FX-6300 that I could never do with my old 2500k. The FX-8320/8350 are real 8 core cpus. 8 integer cores is still 8 cores regardless if it shares some resources or not. Actually your hamsters on wheels analogy is much more like Intel's HT where two threads are packed onto a single core. If you want a hamster on wheel analogy of the module architecture then it would be more like 2 hamsters, each on their own wheel, but those wheels are connected by an axle with an LSD. The time of needing high IPC in cpus is going the way of the dinosaurs and it's about time.

We have been using this same Direct X crap for the past 10+ years. Intel is already seeing diminishing returns on their Core architecture which they have been rehashing over and over. The only way to make progress from here on out (barring an unprecedented leap in technology) is in the software. Mantle is a massive step forward. What will matter most is the gpu. If you watched the video, you would have seen how smooth it was. There were thousands of units on screen and it was buttery smooth. He downlocked the FX-8350 to 2.0 ghz and it was still buttery smooth. Just imagine massive SC 2 battles or MMO raids with no slowdown, that's what Mantle can do for gaming. That is why AMD is going the direction they're going in and is probably why we will be stuck with Kaveri till 2015.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Is DDr4/Mantle/Steamroller combined discussion okay?


Well all those things except the DDR4 as we know that didn't make the cut and the same goes for GDDR5 are for Kaveri and Kaveri has steamroller cores as only product so I call ontopic.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Is DDr4/Mantle/Steamroller combined discussion okay?


I don't see how DDR4 is steamroller related and even mantle is a bit of a stretch (especially if we're discussing how it will affect intel CPUs).

This really isn't the place to compare steamroller chips to intel ones. Feel free to start a thread for that in the general processor discussions section or discuss it in the news section when a relevant thread comes up.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> I don't see how DDR4 is steamroller related and even mantle is a bit of a stretch (especially if we're discussing how it will affect intel CPUs).
> 
> This really isn't the place to compare steamroller chips to intel ones. Feel free to start a thread for that in the general processor discussions section or discuss it in the news section when a relevant thread comes up.


I understand, reason I mentioned Mantle is because this with a new CPU would be great to see how it scales, DDR4 was just along with the preformance deal.
I didn't mean this to be intel vs AMD just wanted to discuss preformance with the new chips versus current ones along with mantle.
Sorry for the confusion.

Well back on topic.

What are we looking at for steamroller core/clock wise?
Are we going to see more 8 cores 'stock clocked' at around the 4ghz mark? Any improvements for overclocking from previous chips?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> I understand, reason I mentioned Mantle is because this with a new CPU would be great to see how it scales, DDR4 was just along with the preformance deal.
> I didn't mean this to be intel vs AMD just wanted to discuss preformance with the new chips versus current ones along with mantle.
> Sorry for the confusion.
> 
> Well back on topic.
> 
> What are we looking at for steamroller core/clock wise?
> Are we going to see more 8 cores 'stock clocked' at around the 4ghz mark? Any improvements for overclocking from previous chips?


We wont be seeing four-module setups; that much I know. Clock rate I'm not sure.

There is no FX refresh; only an A refresh; and that would be Kaveri.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> We wont be seeing four-module setups; that much I know. Clock rate I'm not sure.
> 
> There is no FX refresh; only an A refresh; and that would be Kaveri.


Hm, no 4 modules common again till 2015 huh?
Clock rate would be nice if we can get these APU type chips to high 4ghz like vishera.
Would change cheap mobile gaming laptops/mitx lan slims.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Hm, no 4 modules common again till 2015 huh?
> Clock rate would be nice if we can get these APU type chips to high 4ghz like vishera.
> Would change cheap mobile gaming laptops/mitx lan slims.


We will have four-module parts from now til' 2015, but those will just be what we have now: Piledriver.

Kaveri & Carrizo are planned to be just two-module designs.

There's been no word of whether we'll see four-module designs of... Whatever is after Excavator.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> We will have four-module parts from now til' 2015, but those will just be what we have now: Piledriver.
> 
> Kaveri & Carrizo are planned to be just two-module designs.
> 
> There's been no word of whether we'll see four-module designs of... Whatever is after Excavator.


Why is AMD always digging?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Not sure HSA can be used for non-APUs. There's too much latency from the CPU to the PCIe bus to the GPU to actually do things. You do want the iGPU because, even if you're running quad Titans, it can be used for floating-point calculations in parallel with the CPU.


GPGPU isn't used for latency intensive computing. It's used for throughput. Where even if it took 100ms to get from the CPU to the GPU, it wouldn't matter, because once the workload was there it'd take seconds or more to complete. AMD's own HSA documentation states that the CPU will remain an important part of the HSA ecosystem for latency intensive tasks and the GPU will only be used for things which require throughput over latency (encoding things like jpeg, h.264, etc, rendering, compiling, etc).

Also, who is to say AMD has to stick with PCIe on their platform? Reminder: Intel is going to start phasing out PCIe from the bottom up of their product stack (to kill off lower end dGPUs from AMD and Nvidia and to force users onto Intel integrated) and that there is already a slot that is pin-compatible with PCIe (HTX).

I constantly see people say that "legacy platform" means big x86 core CPUs like 4m/8c FX 8000 series, but no one ever stops to ponder the fact that legacy platform might just mean traditional platform with PCIe, off die northbridge, etc. and that AMD Is offering products for "legacy" consumers before they release a platform which would better accommodate HSA over dGPU and dCPU. Not to mention that not giving people 4m8c SR builds up demand for a new product, which would be very helpful if you were to release a new platform that suffered from the chicken and egg problem of "no one wants to develop software for a hardware platform no one uses and no one wants to buy a hardware platform for software that doesn't exist."

Getting into that market would mean massive income for AMD and it would allow them to place themselves as the dominant force in the professional market, with Mantle and HSA pushing everything. Mantle has a lot more capability than just improving games. Off the top of my head, a Mantle accelerated viewport in 3D Studio Max or something would allow for a lower end AMD FirePro to absolutely demolish a higher end Quadro in viewport performance. And I'm just skimming the surface of what HSA + dGPU + dCPU in professional market would mean.

I don't see anyone ever really bring this up and everyone seems to want to think that AMD is just going to sell cheap APUs and ARM chips for the rest of the company's life. They don't even stop to think that if Mac workstation when HSA, Adobe and tons of professional software companies would jump all over making their software HSA aware and a straight up Intel CPU would have no chance of competing with an AMD CPU + dGPUs + HSA. I suppose a lot of it is due to younger people getting into hardware that weren't around when a company would come out with a paradigm altering innovation which gave computing a massive boost. AMD has been there often with replacing FSB with Hypertransport, putting the memory controller on die, etc. The last several years have been nothing but people talking about IPC increases and power consumption. There hasn't been a huge innovation in x86 computing in a very long time, and those who weren't around for that stage of computing probably think that HEDT computing only involves increasing IPC, core count, and power consumption. I do know that if someone told me I would be using an 8 core, 5ghz CPU with 16GB of ram when I was on my 100mhz Pentium 1, I would have laughed at how ridiculous that sounds. Now, we have people expecting the next 10 years to be power consumption improvements and small tweaks to IPC and a core count bump every 4 years.

AMD has a lot to gain from getting HSA working on what we would want to view as a high end gaming platform. Not to mention AMD has been following a strategy of growing from the bottom up and launching FirePro APUs and then moving that to a better platform later own seems possible. Which is why I've been a strong proponent of AMD no longer adapting server CPUs to desktop and instead adapting workstation _platform_ for HEDT. It would do everything AMD needs. Push HSA. Squeeze Nvidia out of that market with their proprietary stuff. Make Intel irrelevant in professional market. Get support from major software developers for HSA.

HSA's future isn't too great if it's limited to decoding jpeg images twice as fast as a 2m/4c CPU and adding particles and graphical options to video games. But if it gets adopted in the professional market by Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, et al then it's going to the moon and it'd take something massive to dislodge it.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> DDR4 reaching 4200 MHz? Source? I've only ever seen 3600 MHz.
> 
> 
> 
> http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51342-gskill-ddr4-ram-with-speeds-of-4266-mhz-unveiled-11-12v/
> 
> here you go bud, blew my mind.
> GSkill is leading the industry.
Click to expand...

That brings back glorious memories of G. Skill DDR1 550mhz kit. I remember stomping on Core 2 Duo DDR2 rigs with that setup and soaking up the anger of a little $99 Opteron 165 beating stock Core 2 Duo E6600s for $300+. I never told them how much I paid for the ram though, haha.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *davidelite10*
> 
> I understand, reason I mentioned Mantle is because this with a new CPU would be great to see how it scales, DDR4 was just along with the preformance deal.
> I didn't mean this to be intel vs AMD just wanted to discuss preformance with the new chips versus current ones along with mantle.
> Sorry for the confusion.
> 
> Well back on topic.
> 
> What are we looking at for steamroller core/clock wise?
> Are we going to see more 8 cores 'stock clocked' at around the 4ghz mark? Any improvements for overclocking from previous chips?
> 
> 
> 
> We wont be seeing four-module setups; that much I know. Clock rate I'm not sure.
> 
> There is no FX refresh; only an A refresh; and that would be Kaveri.
Click to expand...

As you've seen above I think AMD is waiting for a new platform, probably with DDR4, in order to enable HSA on something besides APU. I'm probably about the only one who feels that way on these forums right now though.

But I do think that by 2016 we will see another paradigm shifting innovation come out of AMD that we haven't seen yet.


----------



## davidelite10

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> GPGPU isn't used for latency intensive computing. It's used for throughput. Where even if it took 100ms to get from the CPU to the GPU, it wouldn't matter, because once the workload was there it'd take seconds or more to complete. AMD's own HSA documentation states that the CPU will remain an important part of the HSA ecosystem for latency intensive tasks and the GPU will only be used for things which require throughput over latency (encoding things like jpeg, h.264, etc, rendering, compiling, etc).
> 
> Also, who is to say AMD has to stick with PCIe on their platform? Reminder: Intel is going to start phasing out PCIe from the bottom up of their product stack (to kill off lower end dGPUs from AMD and Nvidia and to force users onto Intel integrated) and that there is already a slot that is pin-compatible with PCIe (HTX).
> 
> I constantly see people say that "legacy platform" means big x86 core CPUs like 4m/8c FX 8000 series, but no one ever stops to ponder the fact that legacy platform might just mean traditional platform with PCIe, off die northbridge, etc. and that AMD Is offering products for "legacy" consumers before they release a platform which would better accommodate HSA over dGPU and dCPU. Not to mention that not giving people 4m8c SR builds up demand for a new product, which would be very helpful if you were to release a new platform that suffered from the chicken and egg problem of "no one wants to develop software for a hardware platform no one uses and no one wants to buy a hardware platform for software that doesn't exist."
> 
> Getting into that market would mean massive income for AMD and it would allow them to place themselves as the dominant force in the professional market, with Mantle and HSA pushing everything. Mantle has a lot more capability than just improving games. Off the top of my head, a Mantle accelerated viewport in 3D Studio Max or something would allow for a lower end AMD FirePro to absolutely demolish a higher end Quadro in viewport performance. And I'm just skimming the surface of what HSA + dGPU + dCPU in professional market would mean.
> 
> I don't see anyone ever really bring this up and everyone seems to want to think that AMD is just going to sell cheap APUs and ARM chips for the rest of the company's life. They don't even stop to think that if Mac workstation when HSA, Adobe and tons of professional software companies would jump all over making their software HSA aware and a straight up Intel CPU would have no chance of competing with an AMD CPU + dGPUs + HSA. I suppose a lot of it is due to younger people getting into hardware that weren't around when a company would come out with a paradigm altering innovation which gave computing a massive boost. AMD has been there often with replacing FSB with Hypertransport, putting the memory controller on die, etc. The last several years have been nothing but people talking about IPC increases and power consumption. There hasn't been a huge innovation in x86 computing in a very long time, and those who weren't around for that stage of computing probably think that HEDT computing only involves increasing IPC, core count, and power consumption. I do know that if someone told me I would be using an 8 core, 5ghz CPU with 16GB of ram when I was on my 100mhz Pentium 1, I would have laughed at how ridiculous that sounds. Now, we have people expecting the next 10 years to be power consumption improvements and small tweaks to IPC and a core count bump every 4 years.
> 
> AMD has a lot to gain from getting HSA working on what we would want to view as a high end gaming platform. Not to mention AMD has been following a strategy of growing from the bottom up and launching FirePro APUs and then moving that to a better platform later own seems possible. Which is why I've been a strong proponent of AMD no longer adapting server CPUs to desktop and instead adapting workstation _platform_ for HEDT. It would do everything AMD needs. Push HSA. Squeeze Nvidia out of that market with their proprietary stuff. Make Intel irrelevant in professional market. Get support from major software developers for HSA.
> 
> HSA's future isn't too great if it's limited to decoding jpeg images twice as fast as a 2m/4c CPU and adding particles and graphical options to video games. But if it gets adopted in the professional market by Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, et al then it's going to the moon and it'd take something massive to dislodge it.
> That brings back glorious memories of G. Skill DDR1 550mhz kit. I remember stomping on Core 2 Duo DDR2 rigs with that setup and soaking up the anger of a little $99 Opteron 165 beating stock Core 2 Duo E6600s for $300+. I never told them how much I paid for the ram though, haha.
> As you've seen above I think AMD is waiting for a new platform, probably with DDR4, in order to enable HSA on something besides APU. I'm probably about the only one who feels that way on these forums right now though.
> 
> But I do think that by 2016 we will see another paradigm shifting innovation come out of AMD that we haven't seen yet.


I'm so excited for what they're innovating.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Ah so it will be a literal doubling. That's great news!


But the scheduler feeding the decoders only runs every other cycle now, or half as often.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I do know that if someone told me I would be using an 8 core, 5ghz CPU with 16GB of ram when I was on my 100mhz Pentium 1, I would have laughed at how ridiculous that sounds.


Shoot I would have laughed if someone said that we would have that by 2013 just back in 2006 when I had gotten my dual core 1.8GHz Opteron and 512MB memory was still a big thing.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> HSA's future isn't too great if it's limited to decoding jpeg images twice as fast as a 2m/4c CPU and adding particles and graphical options to video games. But if it gets adopted in the professional market by Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, et al then it's going to the moon and it'd take something massive to dislodge it.
> .


If that's the case and HSA gets massive software support, we may see a potential complete switch of is going on in the market now; with AMD being used in the professional environment, developer environment, etc. etc. and Intel being pushed out.

If HSA technologies could be adapted to server usage (I'm not well versed in server workloads so I'm not sure if it's already applicable), then there's another push to Intel out of their top seat.

This would pretty much place AMD at the top (again), but this time the switch is far more drastic; instead of being "neck and neck" continuously and just so happening to come out on top; AMD will be bursting ahead with HSA innovations... It'll definitely be interesting to see how this plays out.

I wonder where both competitors will find themselves after the exchange.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

sdlvx, I can't quote just part of your post on my phone. Intel has a reason to gimp the PCIe bus, but AMD does not. How many dGPUs does Intel make for consumers? Zero. AMD? Well, why else did they buy ATi? They have no reason to change anything whatsoever. And how come they're making a push for APUs if HSA is in fact intended for long-term calculations. I understand that it is supposed to be for low-latency calculations. Any decently programmed decoder/encoder should offload things to the GPU anyway.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> But the scheduler feeding the decoders only runs every other cycle now, or half as often.


There are two 16B fetches for each core done in one cycle rather than one 16B fetch every cycle for one core.

The second core doesn't have to wait for x cycles for the next fetch/pick/decode/FPUop.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There are two 16B fetches for each core done in one cycle rather than one 16B fetch every cycle for one core.
> 
> The second core doesn't have to wait for x cycles for the next fetch/pick/decode/FPUop.


I know that the scheduler is now larger to be able to feed the additional decoders, but that has nothing to do with my comment on the fact that the scheduler is now designed to run only every other cycle instead of how Bulldozer and Piledriver did it where it was every cycle.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I know that the scheduler is now larger to be able to feed the additional decoders, but that has nothing to do with my comment on the fact that the scheduler is now designed to run only every other cycle instead of how Bulldozer and Piledriver did it where it was every cycle.


The scheduler for the fetch units is the branch predictor unit, the scheduler for the decode units is pick stage. The fetch units, fetch one 16B every other cycle, in turn providing 32B to the pick stage. The pick stage for BD/PD is 256B for each core, with Steamroller it is 512B for each core. The pick stage for BD/PD/SR/XV does both picking and dispatching.


----------



## yrettete

Why are they releasing their best APU right away in January?

It will all be downhill for the rest of the year.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

That's how flagships work. 7900 GPUs came first, Titan came before the rest of the 700s... It happens all the time.


----------



## Kuivamaa

You can't release midrange products first because you will cannibalize your sales. Who would buy a 290X or an A10-6800k if AMD would release next gen midrange stuff, cheaper than former flagships but matching them or surpassing them in performance?


----------



## yrettete

Who is going to buy their a8, a6 and maybe a4 products when they already have their best a10 product first week january ?

Also, it will only be about 130 pounds for the 7850k.

How cheap will the a8 range be ?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Who is going to buy their a8, a6 and maybe a4 products when they already have their best a10 product first week january ?


Those that don't want to pay top coin for the most expensive parts or those that don't need the performance of those parts.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Who is going to buy their a8, a6 and maybe a4 products when they already have their best a10 product first week january ?
> 
> Also, it will only be about 130 pounds for the 7850k.
> 
> How cheap will the a8 range be ?


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Those that don't want to pay top coin for the most expensive parts or those that don't need the performance of those parts.


For example the 4300 6300 8320 and 8350

It is the way business is done nothing new, capitalism at its best


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Who is going to buy their a8, a6 and maybe a4 products when they already have their best a10 product first week january ?
> 
> 
> 
> Those that don't want to pay top coin for the most expensive parts or those that don't need the performance of those parts.
Click to expand...

Yup. Look at 290s vs 290Xs in price and in performance. 780s and Titans too. 3970X vs 3960X vs 3930k.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> I know that the scheduler is now larger to be able to feed the additional decoders, but that has nothing to do with my comment on the fact that the scheduler is now designed to run only every other cycle instead of how Bulldozer and Piledriver did it where it was every cycle.


From what I've heard its:
- Fetch 32B every other cycle (up to 8 instructions)
- Decode, rename and issue every cycle


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> From what I've heard its:
> - Fetch 32B every other cycle (up to 8 instructions)
> - Decode, rename and issue every cycle


You got the up to 8 instructions in the wrong spot.

- The 32B(2x16B) can be 32 1-byte CISC instructions to 2 15-byte CISC instructions, which is 16 1-byte to 1 15-byte to one core.
- The decode in SR can decode 8 macro-ops or 4 double macro-ops, which is up to 8 micro-op instructions per core. In BD/PD, it was up to 4 micro-op instructions per core.

- Bulldozer | Piledriver -

Fetch 16B for one core every cycle-> Decode 4 macro-ops (maximum w/o fusion) every cycle for one core-> Issue/Execute up to 4 micro-ops (max) per unit every cycle.

- Steamroller | Excavator -

Fetch 32B for both cores every other cycle -> Decode 8 macro-ops (maximum w/o fusion) every cycle for both cores -> Issue/Execute up to 8 micro-ops (max) per unit every cycle.

-
AMD64 CISC Instructions -> AMD64 Macro-ops -> AMD64 Micro-ops

Unit being: Core A, Core B, Accelerator.


----------



## yawa

A great Xmas gift right now would be a leaked. Synthetic bench of single corecore x86 performance.

That would make my Christmas face


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> A great Xmas gift right now would be a leaked. Synthetic bench of single corecore x86 performance.
> 
> That would make my Christmas face


Have you been a good boy/girl?


----------



## Seronx

Thanks to *pTmd* for finding this:






Skip to 8:00.


----------



## Kuivamaa

DDR4 confirmed with excavator (of some type at least) , still no word on anything newer than that on big core.


----------



## Durquavian

Now maybe it was the sound quality but for a bit there after 8:00 I am sure he said " *THING* " a couple of times. Just the word to use in a tech presentation.


----------



## yawa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Have you been a good bit/girl?


Undoubtedly.

P.S. If you got one, I'll gladly settle for a P.M.

It would be our little secret.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> DDR4 confirmed with excavator (of some type at least) , still no word on anything newer than that on big core.


Source please I didn't hear it in the video.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Source please I didn't hear it in the video.


It's on the slide he is presenting, Toronto APU/CPU, SoC, DDR3/4 etc.


----------



## maarten12100

Well that is more like either ddr3 or ddr4 probably depending on how standard it has become I think we'll see ddr4 though by then.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> It's on the slide he is presenting, Toronto APU/CPU, SoC, DDR3/4 etc.


I do not know how you could make out the content on those charts, I have a high end monitor and I could not magnify the images sufficiently to see anything but the titles on each slide. Seriously tell me how you do it?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I do not know how you could make out the content on those charts, I have a high end monitor and I could not magnify the images sufficiently to see anything but the titles on each slide. Seriously tell me how you do it?


You need to watch on youtube.com and set it to 1080P I couldn't see it either in a tiny window at 480P


----------



## 122512

Does anyone have any details as to what speeds will be supported by the IMC for DDR4?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Does anyone have any details as to what speeds will be supported by the IMC for DDR4?


Good question, probably we will have to wait at least until after CES 14 to have any clue from AMD, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that. I see also that
that server roadmap doesn't show any 8 core or larger server offering for 2015. So the enigma rolls into 2016 to see if there will be an enthusiast offering for 8 cores
on Excavator or its successor. I would not lay my social security or pension check on that presumption, though I still hope for it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Does anyone have any details as to what speeds will be supported by the IMC for DDR4?


It's too early to know anything. We don't even know what Carrizo will be like yet. Guess we'll have to wait for CES '15 for that







.


----------



## tambok2012

the 2500k is clocked @4.5
http://forums.pureoverclock.com/video-card-overclocking/22523-post-your-cinebench-r15-scores.html

so 4.9ghz 7850k will be qual to 4.3ghz quad sandy??


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tambok2012*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the 2500k is clock @4.5
> http://forums.pureoverclock.com/video-card-overclocking/22523-post-your-cinebench-r15-scores.html
> 
> so 4.9ghz 7850k will be qual to 4.3ghz quad sandy??


Problem is Cinebench isn't the best comparison, unsure most of the time what instruction set is chose. Although your numbers do look fair as far as 4.9 = 4.3.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I do not know how you could make out the content on those charts, I have a high end monitor and I could not magnify the images sufficiently to see anything but the titles on each slide. Seriously tell me how you do it?


You don't know? kuivamaa is the man with the info.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Good question, probably we will have to wait at least until after CES 14 to have any clue from AMD, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that. I see also that
> that server roadmap doesn't show any 8 core or larger server offering for 2015. So the enigma rolls into 2016 to see if there will be an enthusiast offering for 8 cores
> on Excavator or its successor. I would not lay my social security or pension check on that presumption, though I still hope for it.


I thought it was interesting when he said the SB and memory was on die at $70. (of course that is assuming I heard him right).


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tambok2012*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the 2500k is clocked @4.5
> http://forums.pureoverclock.com/video-card-overclocking/22523-post-your-cinebench-r15-scores.html
> 
> so *4.9ghz 7850k will be qual to 4.3ghz quad sandy??*


That is a fair assesment it might be a bit faster as Cinebench isn't really a universal benchmark so to speak it is just like superPi if you know what I'm saying. Kaveri is still short of beating my 2008 monster but it is superior in every way besides raw performance being it insruction set, power consumption and actual graphics.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I thought it was interesting when he said the SB and memory was on die at $70. (of course that is assuming I heard him right).


I did not hear $70. Those are server chips not for consumers by the way.


----------



## MrJava

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I did not hear $70. Those are server chips not for consumers by the way.


He said "a server in 70W".

So Carizzo will stay at 4 cores. I'm guessing that DDR4 and integrated FCH (southbridge) will also be supported for laptops.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> integrated FCH (southbridge) will also be supported for laptops.


Man I could definitely go for that; that'd increase battery life quite a bit integrating both bridges into the die. Though why would this be isolated to laptops?


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MrJava*
> 
> He said "a server in 70W".
> 
> So Carizzo will stay at 4 cores. I'm guessing that DDR4 and integrated FCH (southbridge) will also be supported for laptops.


Yeah the sound quality was terrible. I thought how could he give a price on a chip late 2014/ early 2015.


----------



## Demonkev666

Kaveri die is 240mm 47% of that is gpu.


----------



## nitrubbb

http://www.corsair.com/us/memory-by-product-family/vengeance-pro-series-memory/vengeance-pro-series-8gb-2-x-4gb-ddr3-dram-2133mhz-c9-memory-kit-cmy8gx3m2b2133c9.html

is this memory compatible with kaveri?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> http://www.corsair.com/us/memory-by-product-family/vengeance-pro-series-memory/vengeance-pro-series-8gb-2-x-4gb-ddr3-dram-2133mhz-c9-memory-kit-cmy8gx3m2b2133c9.html
> 
> is this memory compatible with kaveri?


Kaveri supports up to DDR3 2400MHz with JEDEC, while with XMP or AMP it can support DDR3 3000+ MHz.

http://www.corsair.com/us/catalog/product/view/id/1227/s/vengeance-pro-series-8gb-2-x-4gb-ddr3-dram-3000mhz-c12-memory-kit-cmy8gx3m2a3000c12r/category/126/
^I wouldn't get it but Kaveri can support this.


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88X%20Extreme6+/?cat=CPU

FM2+ processors listed with SteamrollerB.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88X%20Extreme6+/?cat=CPU
> 
> FM2+ processors listed with SteamrollerB.


Hmm so that means that they did scrap sr A as conjectured


----------



## NaroonGTX

credit to inf64 from S|A forums

http://www.gdm.or.jp/voices/2013/1230/56219


----------



## 122512

Does anyone have any A10-5800K or A10-6800K stock clock R15 benchmarks for direct comparison? I can't see to find any for my life and HWBot is only giving me a 6800K at 5.1 GHz which is... not relevant.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

SO MUCH WANT!!!! argh..


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> SO MUCH WANT!!!! argh..


same, first ever amd build for me


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> credit to inf64 from S|A forums
> 
> http://www.gdm.or.jp/voices/2013/1230/56219


311cb [email protected] is clearly worse than a sandy i5-2400 or so that turbos around 3.3Ghz for this workload. Then again, it is cinebench so it most likely runs on SSE2 or something for AMD vs SSE4 of some kind for intel. And is that 88 really single core? Seems very fishy since a similarily clocked phenom II would score higher than that.

http://www.cbscores.com/

I also see a 3.7 FX-6300 scoring 100+, no way PD is that better over SR(even a vishera that has L3 cache). We need a more accurate benchmark.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The CPU-Z shot says the multiplier is going from 8-20, so my guess is that the Cinebench score wasn't really at 3.7ghz.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The CPU-Z shot says the multiplier is going from 8-20, so my guess is that the Cinebench score wasn't really at 3.7ghz.


Yeah,I'd expect it to score [email protected] 3.53x scaling doesn't seem that bad, that would take it above 400 for MT. Pretty decent for a L3-less CMT based quad that has half its die invested in graphics.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The CPU-Z shot says the multiplier is going from 8-20, so my guess is that the Cinebench score wasn't really at 3.7ghz.


That's probably stock with Turbo enabled. 300MHz Turbo is typical. How much would an equivalent Richland chip score, and what about Vishera (i.e. L3 cache present)?


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> That's probably stock with Turbo enabled. 300MHz Turbo is typical. How much would an equivalent Richland chip score, and what about Vishera (i.e. L3 cache present)?


88 is a ~4.0Ghz trinity/richland core ST score. Maybe less than 4. If this score is indeed legit, then SR isn't bringing much ipc in CB related scenarios, which may be an awful bench for inter-vendor comparisons but it at least shows progress between BD and PD.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Well, it's CineBench, so who knows. There's probably something like this in the code:

Code:



Code:


;Var S is score
if {AMD}
then {S-50}
else {S}

Or something. I played with JS a bit but I have not gotten inspired to pick up a C derivative. (Off-topic, is C# or C++ more useful?) I'm not sure if they're shopped or not. It isn't too hard to manipulate text, but those are photographs of a screen, not screenshots and he could have shopped a screen shot and then photographed the screen I'm sorry I'm an idiot.


----------



## NaroonGTX

No you're not an idiot lol. I'm suspicious of all the scores, and the NDA for Kaveri states that people aren't allowed to post benches before CES '14, so I'm not sure why some random guy from a Jap site would risk this. Either way, I'll wait til next month before I believe anything.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I am allowed to be as self-defecating [sic] as I want!







I just realized that screenshots can easily turn to photos halfway through typing that. Apparently reviewers/test samplers are allowed to post initial observations or opinions but can't post any sort of benchmark until the 14th.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Does seem legit though ,in the sense MT scaling seems fixed. As for ST performance,I am not bothered by the distance between it and intel processors, as they clearly run under different instructions, but from the practically nonexistant distance between it and PD. Then again, if there is something artificially crippling ST, that wouldn't show on MT scaling.


----------



## cssorkinman

Stock CB 15 score from a 6800k , 16 gb of really crappy [email protected]


Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


----------



## maarten12100

Score seems too low I guess this is running somewhere between 2 to 3GHz rather than 3.7 since otherwise that 547 point cinebench score would give better scaling with a clock delta than before which is impossible.


----------



## kzone75

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> Stock CB 15 score from a 6800k , 16 gb of really crappy [email protected]
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


Why does your show 4C/4T? Mine says 2C/4T?


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kzone75*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> Stock CB 15 score from a 6800k , 16 gb of really crappy [email protected]
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why does your show 4C/4T? Mine says 2C/4T?
Click to expand...

I really don't know. I don't have cpu-id installed on it, maybe it reads the hardware differently? Mine is on an MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 motherboard with it's latest bios.
Does yours score similarly?


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> No you're not an idiot lol. I'm suspicious of all the scores, and the NDA for Kaveri states that people aren't allowed to post benches before CES '14, so I'm not sure why some random guy from a Jap site would risk this. Either way, I'll wait til next month before I believe anything.


I find It odd however that all the screen pics are grainy as hell but the scoring area

An they are missing the Trademark (TM) after the graphics.

also the Font on't really match up with Orkinman's image.

i'm smell a fish...


----------



## kzone75

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> I really don't know. I don't have cpu-id installed on it, maybe it reads the hardware differently? Mine is on an MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 motherboard with it's latest bios.
> Does yours score similarly?


Maybe it's an OS thing. I'm on Win 8.1. CPU-id still shows 4C/4T.

Roughly the same scores. 321 on multi and 95 on single. I realized I have Portal 2 / Steam / Gaming Evolved running in the background..


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kzone75*
> 
> Why does your show 4C/4T? Mine says 2C/4T?


Ooh, nice catch! That's the most damning evidence there is that it's faked. I would assume Trinity is also 4C/4T, but I'm not sure and don't know how to access Cinebench archives/results.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Ooh, nice catch! That's the most damning evidence there is that it's faked. I would assume Trinity is also 4C/4T, but I'm not sure and don't know how to access Cinebench archives/results.


There were some benchmarks posted previously in that SA thread that also showed a 2C/4T configuration for both Kaveri and Richland. I will go find em if needed; but that's not really a big deal tbh. For someone to fake it, you'd have to be really messed up not to remember that detail. It's likely just a software bug.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Oh really? Does it depend on your system or the version of CineBench used? That's a weird inconsistency to have.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Oh really? Does it depend on your system or the version of CineBench used? That's a weird inconsistency to have.


It actually wasnt even in Cinebench, oddly enough. I'll go find it and give credit.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Well, it is Missing (tm) in cinebench


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, the missing TM text is odd, as well as the fact that CPU-Z reports 8.5x~20x multiplier rather than up to x37 (for 3.7ghz base). Seems pretty fishy to me. Even in the CPU-Z shot, you can see the (tm) nomenclature.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Oh really? Does it depend on your system or the version of CineBench used? That's a weird inconsistency to have.


Fooooooooooound ittt!

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=231657

Credits to van from SA.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Interesting. So the engineering sample is supposedly dual-core but the production model is quad. That's what I'm looking at, right?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Interesting. So the engineering sample is supposedly dual-core but the production model is quad. That's what I'm looking at, right?


"Supposedly" is definitely the word. I have no idea... Maybe in some situations it detects the modules or SIMD pipelines and in others it identifies the number of x86 pipelines? Im in the dark.


----------



## kzone75

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Oh really? Does it depend on your system or the version of CineBench used? That's a weird inconsistency to have.
> 
> 
> 
> Fooooooooooound ittt!
> 
> http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=231657
> 
> Credits to van from SA.
Click to expand...

Here's mine: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/305256


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *kzone75*
> 
> Here's mine: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/305256


Huh, 2C 4T... I don't think you have a fake 6800K (or do you?







), so this seems to just be a weird "intended/unintended" glitch...


----------



## NaroonGTX

The "2C/4T" thing happens due to the scheduling hotfixes for processors under the Bulldozer family. Windows 8 shipped with those by default.


----------



## kzone75

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *kzone75*
> 
> Here's mine: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/305256
> 
> 
> 
> Huh, 2C 4T... I don't think you have a fake 6800K (or do you?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ), so this seems to just be a weird "intended/unintended" glitch...
Click to expand...

I hope it's not a fake chip I have.







Although I did get better scores than the 6800K on some of the geekbench tests you posted..


----------



## agrims

I had that issue in Windows 7, then I Googled and found the hotfixes for Win 7, and now my computer shows a 4C/4T screen. But the TM missing is a clue that the screen is either manufactured or at a minimum tampered with. Could it be that the dark tower of Intel has hired a guy to get a hand on a sample, and then mess with the results??? Or it could be a fan boy who is just trying to marginalize the chip...

Just food for thought. And it isn't just on the CB, but also missing on the Radeon portion as well...


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> I had that issue in Windows 7, then I Googled and found the hotfixes for Win 7, and now my computer shows a 4C/4T screen. But the TM missing is a clue that the screen is either manufactured or at a minimum tampered with. Could it be that the dark tower of Intel has hired a guy to get a hand on a sample, and then mess with the results??? Or it could be a fan boy who is just trying to marginalize the chip...
> 
> Just food for thought. And it isn't just on the CB, but also missing on the Radeon portion as well...


Mmm well the gains look... realistic. It's near 6800K scores while being quite a bit lower clocked. We'll know for sure when the CPUs get released, but I wouldnt place too much worry on the naming since this is supposedly an ES...


----------



## NaroonGTX

Even ES's don't mess up the naming like that. The older Cinebench screenshot that got "leaked" a couple weeks back showed similar errors.


----------



## NaroonGTX

http://www.pcds.fi/downloads/pris-hinta/Components.pdf

Scroll down to the AMD processors section and pay attention. All I have to say is "wat."


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> http://www.pcds.fi/downloads/pris-hinta/Components.pdf
> 
> Scroll down to the AMD processors section and pay attention. All I have to say is "wat."


So apparently we're getting an Octo-Core, boys and girls...

Edit: Unless they meant GPU CUs? (Why only Kaveri gets them listed?) Otherwise I'm lost.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> So apparently we're getting an Octo-Core, boys and girls...
> 
> Edit: Unless they meant GPU CUs? (Why only Kaveri gets them listed?) Otherwise I'm lost.


the link it takes you too looks closer.. but i thought they were clocked slightly slower :/ maybe i'm mistaken


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> So apparently we're getting an Octo-Core, boys and girls...
> 
> Edit: Unless they meant GPU CUs? (Why only Kaveri gets them listed?) Otherwise I'm lost.


If I read that right that's octo on fm2+ correct?

Oooo you know what.. the 9590 and 9370 are not listed on there. Also the upon further look, It appears that they are listing the GPU,

4+6 and 4+8 would count for the GPU together having 12 compute units. So we are back to the same nothing new than what we already knew. Also it shows the differences as to why the GPU bandwidth are different.

No true 8 core proc at this time.. (hopes still there) but it seems that at this point we are looking at 2m4c + GPU is the max that we are going to get.. Hopefully HSA and Mantle hit full swing and there would not need to be more than what is being provided.

Which would not be an issue as Mantle should at least help the 4m8c procs out there be even better. Maybe there is not a reason to produce something more as it appears this is a full motive to push software to conform before busting something out with more power.

given the lower R&D that AMD has it may actually be a decent idea as there would not need to be further modifications needed than what is already there.

How much improvement was richland over trinity? since a PD refresh seems to be hitting closer to home at this point for AM3+


----------



## kzone75

Octo GPU cores, yes


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> So apparently we're getting an Octo-Core, boys and girls...
> 
> Edit: *Unless they meant GPU CUs? (Why only Kaveri gets them listed?) Otherwise I'm lost.*


I think this is it. 7700 = 6 out of 8 GPU CU's and 7800 = 8 CU's. I guess they're listed because of HSA.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> How much improvement was richland over trinity? since a PD refresh seems to be hitting closer to home at this point for AM3+


Using Trinity>Richland improvements as a yardstick doesn't seem right since they're both PD.

AM3+ isn't getting an update.
PD isn't getting a third refresh.

The future is, as AMD puts it: fusion. AKA: APUs.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Using Trinity>Richland improvements as a yardstick doesn't seem right since they're both PD.
> 
> AM3+ isn't getting an update.
> PD isn't getting a third refresh.
> 
> The future is, as AMD puts it: fusion. AKA: APUs.


You don't know that,at least not from this catalogue. The list lacks many CPU SKU's anyway (no i3-4340,no locked 4670/4770, no FX-4350/6350 etc) so it probably mentions only the things this store (which is located near Vaasa, a rather small city even by Finnish standards) will have for sale.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Using Trinity>Richland improvements as a yardstick doesn't seem right since they're both PD.
> 
> AM3+ isn't getting an update.
> PD isn't getting a third refresh.
> 
> The future is, as AMD puts it: fusion. AKA: APUs.


Main reason is that servers are getting a PD refresh, so if there is a trickle down effect then it could be correlated to an FX Pd refresh which makes my question valid. In addition it also would point to how the server chips would react as well.

FX PD did not get a refresh, those are cherry picked 8350s for the 9370 and 9590s


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Fooooooooooound ittt!
> 
> http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=231657
> 
> Credits to van from SA.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Interesting. So the engineering sample is supposedly dual-core but the production model is quad. That's what I'm looking at, right?


Yes remember that 832 GCN shader chip with just a single module that was designated "spectre".
I hope it exists would make a killer gaming chip.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The 832 shader thing was just Kaveri paired up in DG with a low-end dGPU.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The 832 shader thing was just Kaveri paired up in DG with a low-end dGPU.


Yeah but it would be cool to have a chip with next to no cpu and only gpu punch.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> FX PD did not get a refresh, those are cherry picked 8350s for the 9370 and 9590s


Richland IS a Piledriver refresh from Trinity. I wasnt talking about the 9000 series.

Plus what is this Piledriver refresh for servers? Ive never heard of it... The next step I head was Steamroller with Berlin.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Piledriver refresh for servers is *Warsaw*. It promises "higher performance with lower power consumption", which is basically what Richland did with Trinity. It's pretty much just Piledriver with the cRCM (Cyclos Resonant Clock Mesh) enabled. It is for the multi-processor segment of the server lineup.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Piledriver refresh for servers is *Warsaw*. It promises "higher performance with lower power consumption", which is basically what Richland did with Trinity. It's pretty much just Piledriver with the cRCM (Cyclos Resonant Clock Mesh) enabled. It is for the multi-processor segment of the server lineup.


They're getting RCM? That'll definitely be interesting. Is Berlin getting that? (Probably too early to tell







)


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't know if Berlin is gonna use it or not. If I had a sexy high-res die-shot, I could tell you.


----------



## karamel

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Piledriver refresh for servers is *Warsaw*. It promises "higher performance with lower power consumption", which is basically what Richland did with Trinity. It's pretty much just Piledriver with the cRCM (Cyclos Resonant Clock Mesh) enabled. It is for the multi-processor segment of the server lineup.


So, Does FX-8350 or FX-9370 have cRCM or not? If not, what is the chance of seeing an upcoming cRCM enabled FX processor just like Warsaw refresh?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Richland IS a Piledriver refresh from Trinity. I wasnt talking about the 9000 series.
> 
> Plus what is this Piledriver refresh for servers? Ive never heard of it... The next step I head was Steamroller with Berlin.


key point I said was *FX*


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Piledriver refresh for servers is *Warsaw*. It promises "higher performance with lower power consumption", which is basically what Richland did with Trinity. It's pretty much just Piledriver with the cRCM (Cyclos Resonant Clock Mesh) enabled. It is for the multi-processor segment of the server lineup.


There's no reason why these processors shouldn't trickle down to consumer AM3+ parts, but knowing AMD, they'll be server only







.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> There's no reason why these processors shouldn't trickle down to consumer AM3+ parts, but knowing AMD, they'll be server only
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


Yes there is all AMD AM3+ boards are outdated and it won't be until the unified socket that we'll see true high end stuff.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Yes remember that 832 GCN shader chip with just a single module that was designated "spectre".
> I hope it exists would make a killer gaming chip.


Spectre is the code name for the higher end GPU inside Kaveri. The A10-7850K has a "Spectre" GPU in it.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *karamel*
> 
> So, Does FX-8350 or FX-9370 have cRCM or not? If not, what is the chance of seeing an upcoming cRCM enabled FX processor just like Warsaw refresh?


No those models do not. Currently the only processor with RCM active are the Richland core processors.
I would think it should be quite likely for the AM3+ FX line to get a refresh with the tech since the die would already exist. However the roadmaps do not suggest anything of the sort happening.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Spectre is the code name for the higher end GPU inside Kaveri. The A10-7850K has a "Spectre" GPU in it.


There was a Sisoft bench showing a chip with only one module and 832GCN cores

http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdee7d0e4dcedcbb984b492f792af9fb9caf7cf&l=en

Would be pretty cool to have.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> There was a Sisoft bench showing a chip with only one module and 832GCN cores
> 
> http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdee7d0e4dcedcbb984b492f792af9fb9caf7cf&l=en
> 
> Would be pretty cool to have.


Ok, but the integrated GPU inside higher end Kaveri's are still codenamed Spectre. So whatever cores are available on the top end models, those are the ones with Spectre. Whether that is 832 cores or not IDK and we wont know till the APU finally releases. Spectre is not the codename for the whole APU or some special project with exactly 832 cores and 1 module that may or may not see the light of day.

I believe the speculation on that SiSoft was actually that the APU was running with a low end dGPU in crossfire wasnt it? Which resulted in the odd CU count and memory amount.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Ok, but the integrated GPU inside higher end Kaveri's are still codenamed Spectre. So whatever cores are available on the top end models, those are the ones with Spectre. Whether that is 832 cores or not IDK and we wont know till the APU finally releases. Spectre is not the codename for the whole APU or some special project with exactly 832 cores and 1 module that may or may not see the light of day.
> 
> I believe the speculation on that SiSoft was actually that the APU was running with a low end dGPU in crossfire wasnt it? Which resulted in the odd CU count and memory amount.


That would explain it I figured we had a Spectre part as there was one on that list.


----------



## Demonkev666

What No AMD cpu has RCM ?

Unless you can actually post REAL PROOF ?

It has never been confirm for richland cores

Iit was too late for trinity and pile driver as they where tapped out ahead of being implemented.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> What No AMD cpu has RCM ?
> 
> Unless you can actually post REAL PROOF ?
> 
> It has never been confirm for richland cores
> 
> Iit was too late for trinity and pile driver as they where tapped out ahead of being implemented.


I looked around for the "real proof" on which CPU/APUs use or dont use the Resonant Clock Mesh technology. Unfortunately I couldnt find much of anything as solid proof. There are a lot of articles about Piledriver going to use RCM, but nothing confirming it does in fact already use or not use the tech. There are also articles about Trinity going to be designed with RCM, but again nothing about whether Trinity does or does not have RCM active. My comment on only Richland cores using RCM was from the review articles about Richland and Trinity saying that RCM was in the die but not active for Trinity and was activated in Richland. Whether those reviews are correct or not I dont know, you would need to ask them. The evidence supports their statement that RCm became active in Richland though because of the power consumption decrease without any real changes to the CPU portion of the die.



As for Warsaw and it getting RCM and current Piledriver cores not having the tech, if Piledriver already does have RCM and Warsaw improves power consumption through other means then it will be significant tweaks to the die. I am not sure how this can be justified given that a new architecture is already available and the design cycle of the tweaks would have started after Steamroller was already nearing completion. AMD has been shutting down wasteful spending and to make significant changes to an old architecture would be entirely wasteful spending IMO, and we can see it has no time advantage either since Steamroller architecture is out before the Piledriver tweak is even ready for production.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> As for Warsaw and it getting RCM and current Piledriver cores not having the tech, if Piledriver already does have RCM and Warsaw improves power consumption through other means then it will be significant tweaks to the die. I am not sure how this can be justified given that a new architecture is already available and the design cycle of the tweaks would have started after Steamroller was already nearing completion. AMD has been shutting down wasteful spending and to make significant changes to an old architecture would be entirely wasteful spending IMO, and we can see it has no time advantage either since Steamroller architecture is out before the Piledriver tweak is even ready for production.


I feel as they are moving to two separate cpu developments

it can be APU and Server
or even desktop/apu and sever.

it really looks like AMD has no plans to take sever chips to desktop anymore.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> Stock CB 15 score from a 6800k , 16 gb of really crappy [email protected]
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


If that leaked 7850k is accurate ,then there is a strong possibility that kaveri will have similar ST performance with richland, clock for clock. Unbottlenecking the front end will result in better MT scaling and of course any die are winnings will be devoted to iGPU. This means kaveri will be way less sensitive to bad threading of applications from windows,since CMT penalty is way smaller. Games that occupy 2+ threads will run much better on kaveri.


----------



## nitrubbb

only a week left!

is there a pill that puts you to sleep for a week?


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> is there a pill that puts you to sleep for a week?


Uh...cyanide? But you'll be down for much longer than a week...


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> only a week left!
> 
> is there a pill that puts you to sleep for a week?


Yeah but pretty sure it's been banned in many countries


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> There was a Sisoft bench showing a chip with only one module and 832GCN cores
> 
> http://www.sisoftware.eu/rank2011d/show_run.php?q=c2ffcdf4d2b3d2efdee7d0e4dcedcbb984b492f792af9fb9caf7cf&l=en
> 
> Would be pretty cool to have.


There's not enough room. There is space for 12 CUs, of which at least two, thanks to the modular design, must be CPU cores. You're left with up to an integrated 7770 and dual-core CPU.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> There's not enough room. There is space for 12 CUs, of which at least two, thanks to the modular design, must be CPU cores. You're left with up to an integrated 7770 and dual-core CPU.


That is correct but the die is very small at only 240mm^2 with up to 350 yielding good enough for the 200 dollar price range it can be done.

Actually you could potebtially double the gpu portion of the die while keeping 2m/4c.
But it is more costly so we aren't likely to see those.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Actually you could potebtially double the gpu portion of the die while keeping 2m/4c.
> But it is more costly so we aren't likely to see those.


So... Nehalem i5 + integrated 7850?! Yes please! The only problem would be the massive bottleneck from DDR3, but holy crap that would be awesome. The problem with that is the price tag. For the amount of money all of the R&D would cost, not to mention production, you're looking somewhere between i5 and i7 territory. That would not be in AMD's best interest.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> So... Nehalem i5 + integrated 7850?! Yes please! The only problem would be the massive bottleneck from DDR3, but holy crap that would be awesome. The problem with that is the price tag. For the amount of money all of the R&D would cost, not to mention production, you're looking somewhere between i5 and i7 territory. That would not be in AMD's best interest.


We wont see it this time around but if those moonshot servers are a enormous succes they might push bigger HSA chips for pure crunching.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Yeah, that's basically what supercomputers are doing. GPUs give a lot more FLOPS for a lot fewer moneys, and applying that same principle to servers would not be a bad idea for companies that don't want to drop a kiloBenjamin on a quad-Xeon machine.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> If that leaked 7850k is accurate ,then there is a strong possibility that kaveri will have similar ST performance with richland, clock for clock. Unbottlenecking the front end will result in better MT scaling and of course any die are winnings will be devoted to iGPU. This means kaveri will be way less sensitive to bad threading of applications from windows,since CMT penalty is way smaller. Games that occupy 2+ threads will run much better on kaveri.


If that's the case I will be extremely dissapointed. I know Steamroller was supposed to be about increased Parallelism but it was delayed, and at this point I expect increased IPC. That would just be the icing on top of the crap cake. FX Steamroller cancelled and no IPC increase in Kaveri compared to a processor from 2 1/2 years ago.

Hears hoping it's fake, but AMD has seemed to be very hush on the CPU end of Kaveri. Everything has been about the GPU.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Everything has been about the GPU.


And with good reason. They can't compete with Intel in terms of raw power and we all know it. What they need is a game-changer, meaning HSA and good integrated graphics. Intel is focusing too much on power consumption, and because of that, they haven't had any big architectural improvements since Sandy. They're safe because they know AMD can't touch them. But AMD has ATi, and with that, they've got the best potential for integrated graphics on the market. Nvidia can do ARM but isn't licensed for x86 and Intel, at its heart, is an x86 computing company. Everything they do, from SSDs to their crap iGPUs, is intended to help their x86 CPUs. AMD is trying to move the industry forward, and everything they're backing is open-source: HSA on the CPU side and Mantle on the GPU side.

EDIT: And don't forget that AM3+ Steamroller was never planned, and what we know as Vishera was supposed to be FM2.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If that's the case I will be extremely dissapointed. I know Steamroller was supposed to be about increased Parallelism but it was delayed, and at this point I expect increased IPC. That would just be the icing on top of the crap cake. FX Steamroller cancelled and no IPC increase in Kaveri compared to a processor from 2 1/2 years ago.
> 
> Hears hoping it's fake, but AMD has seemed to be very hush on the CPU end of Kaveri. Everything has been about the GPU.


Yeah,I won't be too happy either. I mean if on top greater Parallelism you would offer significant ST gainings, this would further enhance multithreaded capability. Nevertheless, Cinebench is an awful judge of AMD cpu performance on many levels. An FX 8350 would only show a 10% ST increase over an FX 8150 (both [email protected] when stock) and 16-17% MT increase (8350 is running 10% higher clocks at that workload) and yet in games Vishera wipes the floor with Zambezi, 20-30% framerate increase in many titles. If that's the case here, then it isn't a bad position to be at all. Pity there won't be 3-4 module chips.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If that's the case I will be extremely dissapointed. I know Steamroller was supposed to be about increased Parallelism but it was delayed, and at this point I expect increased IPC. That would just be the icing on top of the crap cake. FX Steamroller cancelled and no IPC increase in Kaveri compared to a processor from 2 1/2 years ago.
> 
> Hears hoping it's fake, but AMD has seemed to be very hush on the CPU end of Kaveri. Everything has been about the GPU.


I would think they are focusing on the GPU for two reasons..

Rubbing in Intels face their edge...(albeit their only one currently)

and, the Graphics Info is attainable as there are other products on the market that use similar architecture in the graphics cards. so there is meat for the gossip sammich.

it is the First steamroller core available. AMD has never gone full monty and spilled everything before its release.

These APU designs play into AMDs marketing scheme. Hype one of the parts to give the other part and out of nowhere feel if its a hit.

if the majority are focused on the GPU, when the cpu comes thru and actually rocks some socks its just gunna make that much bigger of a wave.

IF this is what they are doing i've got big hopes.. but that is a big IF


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Didn't CineBench get money from Intel?

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I would think they are focusing on the GPU for two reasons..
> 
> Rubbing in Intels face their edge...(albeit their only one currently)
> 
> and, the Graphics Info is attainable as there are other products on the market that use similar architecture in the graphics cards. so there is meat for the gossip sammich.
> 
> it is the First steamroller core available. AMD has never gone full monty and spilled everything before its release.
> 
> These APU designs play into AMDs marketing scheme. Hype one of the parts to give the other part and out of nowhere feel if its a hit.
> 
> if the majority are focused on the GPU, when the cpu comes thru and actually rocks some socks its just gunna make that much bigger of a wave.
> 
> IF this is what they are doing i've got big hopes.. but that is a big IF


Maybe their marketing team has become competent! Think of the iGPU this way: it's nearly 20% of a 290X and it's on the same chip as the CPU.


----------



## Papadope

I am all for HSA, and I hope it catches on with developers but it's not the answer to everything. AMD still needs to move the traditional CPU portion of the die forward. They don't need to match Intel but if they ever want to get close they need to make increments of improvement.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Didn't CineBench get money from Intel?


Intel and Maxon (CB developer) are partners and their software is biased towards intel through the use of intel compiler. There is no conspiracy at play, Maxon is very open about it and it isn't their fault if Cinebench is hyped as something it isn't (a good judge of CPU rendering performance, that is).


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

That's what I thought. Anybody who judges performance based on one single benchmark does not get how the real-world works. I was told to get a 2500k (in retrospect, that might have been better) and the evidence presented was game benchmarks: Skyrim, Starcraft II, and all sorts of other poorly-multithreaded or otherwise Intel biased game. Hilarious. No BF3 benchmarks though, I don't think.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I am all for HSA, and I hope it catches on with developers but it's not the answer to everything. AMD still needs to move the traditional CPU portion of the die forward. They don't need to match Intel but if they ever want to get close they need to make increments of improvement.


Sure it isn't, but this is already the second revision of Steamroller. I predict 20% gains at worst.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Yeah,I won't be too happy either. I mean if on top greater Parallelism you would offer significant ST gainings, this would further enhance multithreaded capability. Nevertheless, Cinebench is an awful judge of AMD cpu performance on many levels. An FX 8350 would only show a 10% ST increase over an FX 8150 (both [email protected] when stock) and 16-17% MT increase (8350 is running 10% higher clocks at that workload) and yet in games Vishera wipes the floor with Zambezi, 20-30% framerate increase in many titles. If that's the case here, then it isn't a bad position to be at all. Pity there won't be 3-4 module chips.


Yeah I'll stay with 550 point in cine at 4.9 till proven otherwise.
Steamroller should definitly be strong on the cpu side for most to be interested


----------



## 122512

I personally dont see big gains on the CPU side.

The main difference in architecture AFAIK is having two decoding pipelines instead of one. The rest are probably subtle changes (the usual widening of queues, etc.) and to be honest, I dont see a big gain coming from an extra decoding pipeline. I definitely see a gain in x86 calculations, so Cinebench (as a mainly SIMD benchmark) isnt the best judge of that, but we're not looking at massive 25%+ gains. AMD is in a better position that they were last year with the addition of hUMA and HSA; hell, last year the top APU got low settings @ 1080p on BF3. Now the top Kaveri APU plays medium @ 1080p WITHOUT Mantle. Plus, have you seen the Octane demo? Amazing.

Most of the gains we're gonna see from AMD wont be on the CPU side. They're not trying to fight Intel in pure x86 performance-- they cant. Though they can certainly (and have been) lay the hurt down with a great IGP, and adding Mantle is a big fat nail in the competitor's coffin.


----------



## NaroonGTX

To all the people actually believing this obviously fake bench: did everyone just forget the Hot Chips '12 presentation slides, lol? And that was Steamroller v1. Steamroller does a lot more than just giving each core their own decoder. Store to load forwarding optimizations, dispatch & retire up to 2 stores per cycle, memfile improved - from last 3 stores to last 8 stores - and allow tracking of dependent stack operations, load queue size increase to 48 from 44, store queue size up to 32 from 24, dispatch bandwidth increased to 8 int ops per cycle (4 to each core) from 4 int ops per cycle (4 to 1 core), SYSCALL/SYSRET accelerated, loop prediction improvements, L2 BTB size from 5k to 10k and from 8 to 16 banks, less FP pipeline stages, and a few more I can't recall atm.

I'm not suggesting that Steamroller v2 will be the second coming, but to suggest that it will be the same as Piledriver clock for clock is just insulting to those engineers. There's no way in hell the ST perf and MT scaling will be the same as Piledriver given all the things we know about Steamroller. Don't believe any "benches" you see regardless of how bad or good they are until CES '14 gets here and actual reputable sites start posting their benches once the NDA is up.

As for cRCM -- yes, it was physically present on the dies of both Trinity and Vishera, but wasn't enabled for some reason. Similar to how Bonaire's initial release had the TrueAudio DSP functions on its die, but they weren't enabled until the re-brand of it came out later. It shows how Richland was able to clock higher while using the same or even less power than Trinity. Lots of people got the 6800k to 5ghz and above with ease as opposed to Trinity which routinely topped out at 4.4ghz.

Whether or not the Warsaw variant will trickle down or not, I have no idea. But the roadmaps did not hint at such a thing happening right now.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> If that's the case I will be extremely dissapointed. I know Steamroller was supposed to be about increased Parallelism but it was delayed, and at this point I expect increased IPC. That would just be the icing on top of the crap cake. FX Steamroller cancelled and no IPC increase in Kaveri compared to a processor from 2 1/2 years ago.
> 
> Hears hoping it's fake, but AMD has seemed to be very hush on the CPU end of Kaveri. Everything has been about the GPU.
> 
> 
> 
> I would think they are focusing on the GPU for two reasons..
> 
> Rubbing in Intels face their edge...(albeit their only one currently)
> 
> and, the Graphics Info is attainable as there are other products on the market that use similar architecture in the graphics cards. so there is meat for the gossip sammich.
> 
> it is the First steamroller core available. AMD has never gone full monty and spilled everything before its release.
> 
> These APU designs play into AMDs marketing scheme. Hype one of the parts to give the other part and out of nowhere feel if its a hit.
> 
> if the majority are focused on the GPU, when the cpu comes thru and actually rocks some socks its just gunna make that much bigger of a wave.
> 
> IF this is what they are doing i've got big hopes.. but that is a big IF
Click to expand...

The main reason for focusing on GPU is that they are gaining control of the software that runs on GPU at a very fast rate. As you can see by the discussion about Cinebench and Intel not playing fair with AMD, imagine how much sway Intel is going to have over Mantle enabled games and how those games run on the GPU.

HSA and Mantle is AMD's way to leave behind the whole Wintel disaster that everyone who runs Windows and closed source programs have to deal with. I know firsthand how horrible Wintel ecosystem is for AMD. My friend was pretty upset when my FX 8350 had almost 30% over his 3930k when I was using a custom compiled version of Blender and he was using the official version from blender.org. If he wasn't someone I cared about, there would have been a lot of taunting about how his CPU lost to my CPU, and I bought CPU + motherboard + RAM + XSPC starter kit for the cost of his CPU.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Didn't CineBench get money from Intel?
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I would think they are focusing on the GPU for two reasons..
> 
> Rubbing in Intels face their edge...(albeit their only one currently)
> 
> and, the Graphics Info is attainable as there are other products on the market that use similar architecture in the graphics cards. so there is meat for the gossip sammich.
> 
> it is the First steamroller core available. AMD has never gone full monty and spilled everything before its release.
> 
> These APU designs play into AMDs marketing scheme. Hype one of the parts to give the other part and out of nowhere feel if its a hit.
> 
> if the majority are focused on the GPU, when the cpu comes thru and actually rocks some socks its just gunna make that much bigger of a wave.
> 
> IF this is what they are doing i've got big hopes.. but that is a big IF
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe their marketing team has become competent! Think of the iGPU this way: it's nearly 20% of a 290X and it's on the same chip as the CPU.
Click to expand...

AMD needs to push GPU right now to escape Wintel unfair practises. I'd imagine the plan is more or less to sway people to go AMD because of the iGPU, HSA and Mantle, and then to hope that they start seeing more optimizations for their CPUs.

Right now even if AMD made a totally awesome CPU, tons of review sites would get money from Intel to make sure the AMD CPU review was done with software that highlights the CPU's weakest points.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> I personally dont see big gains on the CPU side.
> 
> The main difference in architecture AFAIK is having two decoding pipelines instead of one. The rest are probably subtle changes (the usual widening of queues, etc.) and to be honest, I dont see a big gain coming from an extra decoding pipeline. I definitely see a gain in x86 calculations, so Cinebench (as a mainly SIMD benchmark) isnt the best judge of that, but we're not looking at massive 25%+ gains. AMD is in a better position that they were last year with the addition of hUMA and HSA; hell, last year the top APU got low settings @ 1080p on BF3. Now the top Kaveri APU plays medium @ 1080p WITHOUT Mantle. Plus, have you seen the Octane demo? Amazing.
> 
> Most of the gains we're gonna see from AMD wont be on the CPU side. They're not trying to fight Intel in pure x86 performance-- they cant. Though they can certainly (and have been) lay the hurt down with a great IGP, and adding Mantle is a big fat nail in the competitor's coffin.


Yeah, and you can simulate that roughly by comparing how Piledriver runs by running benchmarks in 4m/4c (one module per compute unit) and in 2m/4c (disable half the modules). CB r11.5 was a little under 20% faster when in 4m/4c more than 2m/4c mode.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> To all the people actually believing this obviously fake bench: did everyone just forget the Hot Chips '12 presentation slides, lol? And that was Steamroller v1. Steamroller does a lot more than just giving each core their own decoder. Store to load forwarding optimizations, dispatch & retire up to 2 stores per cycle, memfile improved - from last 3 stores to last 8 stores - and allow tracking of dependent stack operations, load queue size increase to 48 from 44, store queue size up to 32 from 24, dispatch bandwidth increased to 8 int ops per cycle (4 to each core) from 4 int ops per cycle (4 to 1 core), SYSCALL/SYSRET accelerated, loop prediction improvements, L2 BTB size from 5k to 10k and from 8 to 16 banks, less FP pipeline stages, and a few more I can't recall atm.
> 
> I'm not suggesting that Steamroller v2 will be the second coming, but to suggest that it will be the same as Piledriver clock for clock is just insulting to those engineers. There's no way in hell the ST perf and MT scaling will be the same as Piledriver given all the things we know about Steamroller. Don't believe any "benches" you see regardless of how bad or good they are until CES '14 gets here and actual reputable sites start posting their benches once the NDA is up.
> 
> As for cRCM -- yes, it was physically present on the dies of both Trinity and Vishera, but wasn't enabled for some reason. Similar to how Bonaire's initial release had the TrueAudio DSP functions on its die, but they weren't enabled until the re-brand of it came out later. It shows how Richland was able to clock higher while using the same or even less power than Trinity. Lots of people got the 6800k to 5ghz and above with ease as opposed to Trinity which routinely topped out at 4.4ghz.
> 
> Whether or not the Warsaw variant will trickle down or not, I have no idea. But the roadmaps did not hint at such a thing happening right now.


Well no because seeing AMD presenting just before Intel makes me realize how far behind they were









But indeed this is most likely fake there will be gains as the ES benches have clearly shown though there will also be some minor losses.


----------



## AlphaC

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Fooooooooooound ittt!
> 
> http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=231657
> 
> Credits to van from SA.


Here's what I got from dividing out

Integer 108%
Integer Multicore 134%
AES 121%
AES Multicore 103%
Twofish 96%
Twofish Multicore 130%
SHA1 120%
SHA1 Multicore 169%
SHA2 118%
SHA2 Multicore 168%
BZip2 Compress 102%
BZip2 Compress Multicore 97%
BZip2 Decompress 96%
BZip2 Decompress Multicore 92%
JPEG Compress 95%
JPEG Compress Multicore 130%
JPEG Decompress 111%
JPEG Decompress Multicore 156%
PNG Compress 109%
PNG Compress Multicore 150%
PNG Decompress 109%
PNG Decompress Multicore 146%
Sobel 106%
Sobel Multicore 133%
Lua 114%
Lua Multicore 166%
Dijkstra 115%
Dijkstra Multicore 130%

and minor losses in memory benchmarks even though it's 1000Mhz memory ont he Fm2+ and 800MHz on the Fm2
It could be that the A55 Chipset on the FM2+ system is weaker than that of the A55 chipset on FM2 or the memory amount is 8GB on the Fm2 system (probably not dual channel difference since that would be large)

VS i5-2310 , not looking too good
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=301842
Integer Multicore 86%
AES 83%
AES Multicore 34%
Twofish 126%
Twofish Multicore 126%
SHA1 114%
SHA1 Multicore 110%
SHA2 128%
SHA2 Multicore 127%
BZip2 Compress 101%
BZip2 Compress Multicore 79%
BZip2 Decompress 100%
BZip2 Decompress Multicore 80%
JPEG Compress 105%
JPEG Compress Multicore 102%
JPEG Decompress 92%
JPEG Decompress Multicore 86%
PNG Compress 92%
PNG Compress Multicore 84%
PNG Decompress 100%
PNG Decompress Multicore 116%
Sobel 87%
Sobel Multicore 77%
Lua 100%
Lua Multicore 96%
Dijkstra 76%
Dijkstra Multicore 61%

VS i5-760 @4-4.2Ghz, GOOD (60+ % of the multicore , crap memory scores though).
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=302504
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=300902
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=301714

Integer Multicore 87%
AES 1157%
AES Multicore 378%
Twofish 93%
Twofish Multicore 92%
SHA1 85%
SHA1 Multicore 80%
SHA2 92%
SHA2 Multicore 87%
BZip2 Compress 100%
BZip2 Compress Multicore 75%
BZip2 Decompress 106%
BZip2 Decompress Multicore 81%
JPEG Compress 93%
JPEG Compress Multicore 85%
JPEG Decompress 87%
JPEG Decompress Multicore 75%
PNG Compress 77%
PNG Compress Multicore 68%
PNG Decompress 86%
PNG Decompress Multicore 74%
Sobel 81%
Sobel Multicore 69%
Lua 85%
Lua Multicore 82%
Dijkstra 74%
Dijkstra Multicore 59%









VS i5-750 @2.67GHz
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=308609
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=304179
Same terrible memory results

VS i3-2100
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/223722?baseline=308314
Integer 141%
Integer Multicore 234%
AES 1598%
AES Multicore 1145%
Twofish 146%
Twofish Multicore 301%
SHA1 146%
SHA1 Multicore 317%
SHA2 169%
SHA2 Multicore 392%
BZip2 Compress 122%
BZip2 Compress Multicore 181%
BZip2 Decompress 108%
BZip2 Decompress Multicore 165%
JPEG Compress 112%
JPEG Compress Multicore 189%
JPEG Decompress 98%
JPEG Decompress Multicore 205%
PNG Compress 97%
PNG Compress Multicore 167%
PNG Decompress 107%
PNG Decompress Multicore 180%
Sobel 98%
Sobel Multicore 164%
Lua 113%
Lua Multicore 217%
Dijkstra 93%
Dijkstra Multicore 120%


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AlphaC*
> 
> Here's what I got from dividing out
> 
> Integer 108%
> Integer Multicore 134%
> AES 121%
> AES Multicore 103%
> Twofish 96%
> Twofish Multicore 130%
> SHA1 120%
> SHA1 Multicore 169%
> SHA2 118%
> SHA2 Multicore 168%
> BZip2 Compress 102%
> BZip2 Compress Multicore 97%
> BZip2 Decompress 96%
> BZip2 Decompress Multicore 92%
> JPEG Compress 95%
> JPEG Compress Multicore 130%
> JPEG Decompress 111%
> JPEG Decompress Multicore 156%
> PNG Compress 109%
> PNG Compress Multicore 150%
> PNG Decompress 109%
> PNG Decompress Multicore 146%
> Sobel 106%
> Sobel Multicore 133%
> Lua 114%
> Lua Multicore 166%
> Dijkstra 115%
> Dijkstra Multicore 130%
> 
> and minor losses in memory benchmarks even though it's 1000Mhz memory ont he Fm2+ and 800MHz on the Fm2
> It could be that the A55 Chipset on the FM2+ system is weaker than that of the A55 chipset on FM2 or the memory amount is 8GB on the Fm2 system (probably not dual channel difference since that would be large)


The premier chipset for FM2+ is A88X not A55. Kaveri will not give optimal performance in the A55 chipset.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> The premier chipset for FM2+ is A88X not A55. Kaveri will not give optimal performance in the A55 chipset.


You can get better OC performance on the A85X chipset though. The new versions doesnt really add too much but takes away some of the clockgen capabilities that allow for higher base clock speed which means easier OC tuning and higher OC headroom. It would be nice to see a high end motherboard like an FM2+ UD5 or UD7 using the A85X


----------



## NaroonGTX

Don't you mean A85X? A75X isn't a thing, there's just A75.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Don't you mean A85X? A75X isn't a thing, there's just A75.


Eh sure whatever it is


----------



## Themisseble

Hello
AMD FX 4300 3,8Ghz is same as i5 750 at 2,8Ghz ... as far as benchmarks
http://www.bf4blog.com/battlefield-4-retail-gpu-cpu-benchmarks/
Intel has lower CPU usage
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-china-rising-test-gpu.html
here you can see ittle lower AMD cpu usage

This benchmark tells us that FX single core perf. is same as Intel nehalem

I hope that amd will do steamroller/excavator in 2015 - new cpu that will boost vishera about 35% with 10-20% lower power consumption.
35% means a lot - at 3,8GHz it would be fast same as FX 6300 4,95Ghz

...


----------



## sdlvx

So, is it too early to make an HSA/APU/HEDT speculation thread or do we not have enough information on that yet?


----------



## iamwardicus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> Hello
> AMD FX 4300 3,8Ghz is same as i5 750 at 2,8Ghz ... as far as benchmarks
> http://www.bf4blog.com/battlefield-4-retail-gpu-cpu-benchmarks/
> Intel has lower CPU usage
> http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4-china-rising-test-gpu.html
> here you can see ittle lower AMD cpu usage
> 
> This benchmark tells us that FX single core perf. is same as Intel nehalem
> 
> I hope that amd will do steamroller/excavator in 2015 - new cpu that will boost vishera about 35% with 10-20% lower power consumption.
> 35% means a lot - at 3,8GHz it would be fast same as FX 6300 4,95Ghz
> 
> ...


I hope AMD gives us a drop in replacement for the 8xxx series processor... I bought my Crossfire-Z in hopes for that option when it came that time. I'm still having high hopes for Kaveri though for new builds I do for friends on a budget. Also having high hopes for HSA and the potential it has for performance gains.


----------



## decimator

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iamwardicus*
> 
> I hope AMD gives us a drop in replacement for the 8xxx series processor... I bought my Crossfire-Z in hopes for that option when it came that time. I'm still having high hopes for Kaveri though for new builds I do for friends on a budget. Also having high hopes for HSA and the potential it has for performance gains.


Well, according to the roadmap, Vishera will be the HEDT part well into 2015, so I have to think that there will be a Vishera refresh at some point for AM3+. Nothing is guaranteed, though. The AM3+ mobo market has gotten stagnant with no new boards coming out to compete with the Crosshair V Formula-Z, probably due to archaic 990FX chipset. I'll be holding out, though. This 1090T does what I need it to right now and if it turns out that no new Vishera parts are coming out, I can still upgrade to a 8350 or something.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *decimator*
> 
> Well, according to the roadmap, Vishera will be the HEDT part well into 2015, so I have to think that there will be a Vishera refresh at some point for AM3+.


I wouldn't count on it, but a 28nm revision of Vishera would certainly be worth keeping my AM3+ system going for another year, especially if it could reach the 9590 clocks without being an egg-fryer.


----------



## Kuivamaa

No die shrink, If there is a refresh ,it will be on the same process.


----------



## rabidz7

I'm still waiting here for AMD to go 14nm...


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rabidz7*
> 
> I'm still waiting here for AMD to go 14nm...


Not anytime soon. Next die shrink is either to 20nm or 16nm. Pretty sure 14nm will be leapfrogged.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Not gonna happen anytime soon.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> So, is it too early to make an HSA/APU/HEDT speculation thread or do we not have enough information on that yet?


It is never too early to speculate, comrade.


----------



## yrettete




----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Not anytime soon. Next die shrink is either to 20nm or 16nm. Pretty sure 14nm will be leapfrogged.


And don't forget that 14nm for Intel is not actually 14nm. Unfortunate because that is the number everyone is looking for AMD to hit now. A lot like TDP...


----------



## MasterGamma12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> And don't forget that 14nm for Intel is not actually 14nm. Unfortunate because that is the number everyone is looking for AMD to hit now. A lot like TDP...


So what is it really then?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rabidz7*
> 
> I'm still waiting here for AMD to go 14nm...


AMD will go 14nm mid 2014 as in they will tap out ultra mobile chips if GloFo keeps their schedule desktop products will be pushed far into 2015
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Not anytime soon. Next die shrink is either to 20nm or 16nm. Pretty sure 14nm will be leapfrogged.


20nm will give a very big increase while 16nm is obviously the stop gap for 14nm to be ready.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MasterGamma12*
> 
> So what is it really then?


Intel 14nm is like 16nm or so, this was discussed by someone very knowledgeable in this matter not me. But it was said that Intel has weird measuring that doesn't pertain to actual size or something. Kind of like their TDP figures which are called SDP or something that give the normal TDP expectancy not the max. So in their mobile chips they show a 5watt and AMD shows a 7 watt so on appearances it looks like Intel uses less power in that slot when actually using Intels figures and test the AMD is actually a 4watt. That was big discussion a few months ago.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Intel 14nm is like 16nm or so, this was discussed by someone very knowledgeable in this matter not me. But it was said that Intel has weird measuring that doesn't pertain to actual size or something. Kind of like their TDP figures which are called SDP or something that give the normal TDP expectancy not the max. So in their mobile chips they show a 5watt and AMD shows a 7 watt so on appearances it looks like Intel uses less power in that slot when actually using Intels figures and test the AMD is actually a 4watt. That was big discussion a few months ago.


Why would AMD choose not to use the same measuring technique instead of making themselves look worse if that was the case? Or atleast make it more publicly known so they could be compared on a even playing field.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Why would AMD choose not to use the same measuring technique instead of making themselves look worse if that was the case? Or atleast make it more publicly known so they could be compared on a even playing field.


I don't know, could be a lot of things really. Intel making up their own as they see fit. Just because one car company decides to call a 3/4 mile a Dile and start advertising they get 45 DPG doesn't mean everyone thinks it is a good idea to create their own standard of metrics. Does make one wonder why there isn't a standard or why it isn't enforced?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I don't know, could be a lot of things really. Intel making up their own as they see fit. Just because one car company decides to call a 3/4 mile a Dile and start advertising they get 45 DPG doesn't mean everyone thinks it is a good idea to create their own standard of metrics. Does make one wonder why there isn't a standard or why it isn't enforced?


Had to rep you on that. But for those wondering about Intel skewing the numbers, I believe it was discussed in here. It is real. I forget who did point it out. I would search and quote the posts, but it's time for bed for me.


----------



## NaroonGTX

AMD used SDP on one of their recent roadmaps.


----------



## MasterGamma12

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Intel 14nm is like 16nm or so, this was discussed by someone very knowledgeable in this matter not me. But it was said that Intel has weird measuring that doesn't pertain to actual size or something. Kind of like their TDP figures which are called SDP or something that give the normal TDP expectancy not the max. So in their mobile chips they show a 5watt and AMD shows a 7 watt so on appearances it looks like Intel uses less power in that slot when actually using Intels figures and test the AMD is actually a 4watt. That was big discussion a few months ago.


Thanks for explainin.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Why would AMD choose not to use the same measuring technique instead of making themselves look worse if that was the case? Or atleast make it more publicly known so they could be compared on a even playing field.


They started doing that with Mullins and Beema though.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD used SDP on one of their recent roadmaps.


TDP for Mullins is 4.5W and is considered to be a Fanless APU. edit: For Tablets, it isn't fanless enough to be for phones which require SDP to be in ~1000mW area.
---
http://i.imgur.com/SktHoRJ.jpg
28nm SHP returns...

I had a thread DEDICATED for this.

I reinstate 28nm FDSOI is most likely 28nm SHP.
---
http://i.imgur.com/jgbfVIr.jpg

"Why we chose GlobalFoundries 28nm SHP"


----------



## imran27

2014, 2015, ....
AMD's golden age has started.
Just think of it, APU's having performance way better than the i5's, HSA on the APU (CPU+iGPU), Mantle on the GPU and the best part: HSA and Mantle working together via Hybrid CrossfireX. All these makes the APU's very much actractive, even more than the FX, just falls short of core-count







, if the APU had 6 or more cores then I'm sure that everyone would have gone for the APU instead of the FX.
Assuming Kaveri as fist gen of HSA APU's, how well do they stand against FX when the workload is openCL/HSA based?? Do these APU's perform better in such tasks as compared to even the FX-8xxx??


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I think you're jumping the gun by about a week. Not yet. I'm somewhat skeptical given the leaks and recent slides.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I don't know, could be a lot of things really. Intel making up their own as they see fit. Just because one car company decides to call a 3/4 mile a Dile and start advertising they get 45 DPG doesn't mean everyone thinks it is a good idea to create their own standard of metrics. Does make one wonder why there isn't a standard or why it isn't enforced?










Wow. That sounds so _stupid_ when you put it that way, but that's exactly what they're doing. It would be more analogous to Intel if they created theses diles and them started calling them miles later on.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Why would AMD choose not to use the same measuring technique instead of making themselves look worse if that was the case? Or atleast make it more publicly known so they could be compared on a even playing field.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I don't know, could be a lot of things really. Intel making up their own as they see fit. Just because one car company decides to call a 3/4 mile a Dile and start advertising they get 45 DPG doesn't mean everyone thinks it is a good idea to create their own standard of metrics. Does make one wonder why there isn't a standard or why it isn't enforced?


Measuring a nanometer sized object is done with a technique called nanoprobing. The "proper" way to measure nm size in process technology is to measure the silicone channel length between the source and the drain. This is called the gate length. The rest of the sizes are said to average that size but in reality some are a little bit larger and some are a little bit smaller. Currently however, if other people measure the gate length of Intel processors it is measured that the size is 1.182x larger than what Intel claims them to be. So Intel's 22nm node would be what the rest of the world calls 26nm. The 14nm node is close to 16.5nm in size. At the next node Intel may change their measuring again so the size can be something completely different. I believe the measuring by different companies actually has more to do with what the fab calls the process tech, not just what AMD wants to call it. AMD uses TSMC and GF for fab's to make the processors. Intel has their own fabs in house so they can call the tech whatever they want. The proper way to measure though is still to measure the source terminals to the drain terminals in the transistor. This puts Intel's 14nm actually behind both TSMC's 16nm and GF's 14nm in process size, however both of those are not actually in full production just yet so it doesn't matter. By the time those chips hit the streets Intel may be down at "7nm" which would bring them into the lead again for size.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> 2014, 2015, ....
> AMD's golden age has started.


I will always think of AMD's golden age as the socket 939 generation time. That was back when AMD obliterated Intel in performance across all market fronts. Hopefully AMD comes back to do with once again because it would be nice to see an even greater Golden Age than before. I believe AMD can do it one day, and this HSA stuff might be the way to it. AMD has a habit of inventing new technology that not only brings them the performance crown but also changes the PC landscape completely.


----------



## yrettete

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfXI1pn5los

Same hardware - but 45% faster.

Does this mean the gpu on the APU is 45% faster, and if so, what would that make the 7750, in theory ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Not sure what you're asking? Mantle removes a lot of overhead from the code so components can operate more efficiently. It doesn't magically make the hardware more powerful, though I wouldn't complain if it did.


----------



## yrettete

I meant, a 7750 with a 45% increase performs like a 7770, I assume, with Mantle games ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Somewhere between a 7770 and R7 260 is most likely, at least if we assume more GCN cores scale linearly.


----------



## Darkstalker420

Just jumped in here so forgive me. Was the BF4 demo running on Kaveri (7850K)? Anyone have any idea about in game settings etc. But WOW! 45% faster with Mantle if for real DAMN SON!! *Dumps Nvidia shares. If the discrete R series GPU's get the same 45% i will throw my GTX 470 out the window and never look at "green" GPU's again. Props to AMD if they pull this off goes to show how much can be gained from "trimming" the fat software wise.

Go AMD!!









Thanx.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> however both of those are not actually in full production just yet so it doesn't matter. By the time those chips hit the streets Intel may be down at "7nm" which would bring them into the lead again for size.
> .


Tap out is mid 2014 and release would be trough-out 2015 for 14nm and I sincerely doubt Intel will be on what they call 7nm by the. (unless new GloFo pulls an old GloFo







.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Darkstalker420*
> 
> Just jumped in here so forgive me. Was the BF4 demo running on Kaveri (7850K)? Anyone have any idea about in game settings etc. But WOW! 45% faster with Mantle if for real DAMN SON!! *Dumps Nvidia shares. If the discrete R series GPU's get the same 45% i will throw my GTX 470 out the window and never look at "green" GPU's again. Props to AMD if they pull this off goes to show how much can be gained from "trimming" the fat software wise.
> 
> Go AMD!!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanx.


The demo was running on a high end card for it showed 110/115 fps so it is running maxed at 1080P with scales maxed on a R9 290X.
At least that is what I think the performance number is up to 45% so that is most likely in a cpu limited case I guess there is about a 15/20% gain overall.
It is confirmed to be more than 4%


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Intel 14nm is like 16nm or so, this was discussed by someone very knowledgeable in this matter not me. But it was said that Intel has weird measuring that doesn't pertain to actual size or something. Kind of like their TDP figures which are called SDP or something that give the normal TDP expectancy not the max. So in their mobile chips they show a 5watt and AMD shows a 7 watt so on appearances it looks like Intel uses less power in that slot when actually using Intels figures and test the AMD is actually a 4watt. That was big discussion a few months ago.
> 
> 
> 
> Why would AMD choose not to use the same measuring technique instead of making themselves look worse if that was the case? Or atleast make it more publicly known so they could be compared on a even playing field.
Click to expand...

For marketing. No one really questions Intel. In fact, I went to dig up the article from electronicsweekly.com about 22nm being more like 26nm, and the second result in google was an anandtech post saying that Intel lying about their process size is a lie.

You are talking about the company that had someone pretending to play a game that was actually just a VLC video of the game, while talking about how good the iGPU was performing. And no one really flipped out over it.

Here's a little article about it: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms/manufacturing/the-honest-process-guy-2013-05/

Note how TSMC 16nm is actually 14nm but the name was changed because the Chinese can be pretty superstitious and 14 is an unlucky number over there.

Intel 14nm is going to be more like 16nm. TSMC will actually be ahead, but no one will ever say it, and if you do, specially in the wrong place like anandtech, you're going to get roasted for it.

_EDIT: But you can see signs of people who lean Intel but know their stuff flipping out a little bit when they realize 28nm Kaveri is far more dense than 22nm Haswell. At the very least it's turning a few heads. Some skepticism into Intel is always good. Specially when a common theme of Intel fanboys is "lol AMD SUX THEY STILL 28nm LOL INTEL 22nm!"_
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> AMD used SDP on one of their recent roadmaps.


In a presentation (sorry, I don't feel like digging it up), someone from AMD said that they pretty much were using SDP because the competition was using it. They pretty much went "well Intel invented this standard and if we don't use it people will compare 2w SDP to 5wTDP and think the 2w SDP is better."

People already have a hard enough time grasping the concept that wattage can measure power consumption AND heat, Now throw in more letters and hardly anyone will know what's happening.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> however both of those are not actually in full production just yet so it doesn't matter. By the time those chips hit the streets Intel may be down at "7nm" which would bring them into the lead again for size.
> .
> 
> 
> 
> Tap out is mid 2014 and release would be trough-out 2015 for 14nm and I sincerely doubt Intel will be on what they call 7nm by the. (unless new GloFo pulls an old GloFo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
Click to expand...

I thought Intel was going to slow down their jumps to smaller nodes because they weren't making enough ROI, as evidenced by Intel opening fabs to third parties.


----------



## Seronx

ISDA28 = Intel22
ISDA20 = Intel14
ISDA15 = Intel10


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The demo was running on a high end card for it showed 110/115 fps so it is running maxed at 1080P with scales maxed on a R9 290X.
> At least that is what I think the performance number is up to 45% so that is most likely in a cpu limited case I guess there is about a 15/20% gain overall.
> It is confirmed to be more than 4%


Could have been an r9 280x



Another 45% gets you from 72fps to about 100.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Could have been an r9 280x
> 
> 
> 
> Another 45% gets you from 72fps to about 100.


They said up to so I think it is a r9 290x they are more likely to use a top of the line card or on 4K 2 top of the line cards.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Somewhat off-topic, but does hybrid crossfire work with multiple GPUs? Like if I got a pair of 7750s to go with my 6800k, would I get 1368 shaders to play with?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Somewhat off-topic, but does hybrid crossfire work with multiple GPUs? Like if I got a pair of 7750s to go with my 6800k, would I get 1368 shaders to play with?


It only works with XDMA engines.

Kaveri+Hawaii XT
512+2816

Kaveri+Hawaii Pro
512+2560

Kaveri+Bonaire XTX(R7 260X, the 7790 which is Bonaire XT has it disabled)
512+896

Kaveri+Oland XT
512+384

So, if you find a board with 3 * pcie 3.0 x16 slots via a switch.

512+2816+2816+2816 => 8960 ALUs and Mantle and HSA can use all of them without Legacy Crossfire being enabled.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I was referring to current APUs but holy crap is 290X compatibility confirmed? And the 250 is in fact GCN 1.1? Oh if I had the money I would do a Kaveri build...


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It only works with XDMA engines.
> 
> Kaveri+Hawaii XT
> 512+2816
> 
> Kaveri+Hawaii Pro
> 512+2560
> 
> Kaveri+Bonaire XTX(R7 260X, the 7790 which is Bonaire XT has it disabled)
> 512+896
> 
> Kaveri+Oland XT
> 512+384
> 
> So, if you find a board with 3 * pcie 3.0 x16 slots via a switch.
> 
> 512+2816+2816+2816 => 8960 ALUs and Mantle and HSA can use all of them without Legacy Crossfire being enabled.


is this info correct? wowowow if true


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> I was referring to current APUs but holy crap is 290X compatibility confirmed?


Llano, Trinity, and Richland's iGPUs do not have XDMA units.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> And the 250 is in fact GCN 1.1?


Hawaii, Bonaire, and Oland are GCN 1.1.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

That's just stupidly awesome. R9 290X + R9 290X + A10 7850k. Oh, the lulz that would ensue. Does it only work through PCIe 3.0?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> That's just stupidly awesome. R9 290X + R9 290X + A10 7850k. Oh, the lulz that would ensue. Does it only work through PCIe 3.0?


It works with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0, it is recommend for slots with an aggregate of 16 GB/s at least.

FX + R9 290X + R9 290X or FX + R7 260X + R7 260X will work the same way with A10-7850K + R9 290X + R9 290X or A10-7850K + R7 260X + R7 260X.

The FX solution will be slower do to system memory and GPU memory not being fused.

If you want to maximize system and GPU memory, you'll want to put the HDMI/Displayport into the Motherboard not the Discrete GPU. The reason for this is that XDMA will send all the render data to the APU. The APU will handle presentation while the GPUs will handle all the data and processing.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Technically no PCIe slot has that since one lane of 3.0 is 985MB/s, so 15.76GB/s is the fastest.







Close enough though. However, a couple 3.0 @ x8 slots and a 2.0 @ x16 slot would do everything it needs to. Final question for now: does Oland and new Bonaire allow crossfire via the PCIe bus?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Final question for now: does Oland and new Bonaire allow crossfire via the PCIe bus?


Yes, Oland just doesn't have an Audio Coprocessor.


----------



## DapperDan795

Seronx - Is there anything AMD related you don't already know? Lol, gimme all your infos!


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Is there anything AMD related you don't already know?


Yes, there is plenty of stuff I have yet to find out.

For what I know about XDMA it:
Fuses GPU Memory(Data does not need to be mirrored and instead Atomics are used/XDMA for GPUs and DMA for System.)
Fuses Display Pipeline(The GPU that presents commands all other GPUs.)


----------



## DapperDan795

So if I bought a 7850k and used it with my 290x I would see better performance than my Fx-8350 and 290x?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> So if I bought a 7850k and used it with my 290x I would see better performance than my Fx-8350 and 290x?


If you are running Windows XP/Vista/7 and playing Runescape 3(Jave 6/7), ignoring 7850Ks IPC increase, they should be the same.

If you are running Windows 8/8.1/8.2 and playing Runescape 3(Java 8/9), the A10-7850K+290X w/o Vsync would be much faster than FX+290X w/o Vsync.

Windows 8 and beyond, the APU with IOMMU 2.x will always be faster than the CPUs with IOMMU 1.26.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> So if I bought a 7850k and used it with my 290x I would see better performance than my Fx-8350 and 290x?


Better CPU and more GPU, so probably, unless the program requires 5+ threads.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> If you are running Windows XP/Vista/7 and playing Runescape 3(Jave 6/7), ignoring 7850Ks IPC increase, they should be the same.
> 
> If you are running Windows 8/8.1/8.2 and playing Runescape 3(Java 8/9), the A10-7850K+290X w/o Vsync would be much faster than FX+290X w/o Vsync.
> 
> Windows 8 and beyond, the APU with IOMMU 2.x will always be faster than the CPUs with IOMMU 1.26.


Not sure I understand the Runescape 3 bit? Break it down to a more beginner vernacular for me please. As far as gaming for me it's BF4 and WoW primarily. Company of Heroes 2 and some SC2 also.

Edit- I use Win 8.1


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Yes, there is plenty of stuff I have yet to find out.
> 
> For what I know about XDMA it:
> Fuses GPU Memory(Data does not need to be mirrored and instead Atomics are used/XDMA for GPUs and DMA for System.)
> Fuses Display Pipeline(The GPU that presents commands all other GPUs.)


Seronx, what how would the configuration go with CrossFireX setups?

For example, let's say you get a 7850K with hUMA, but get a (hypothetical equivalent of 6670) CFx compatible card with it. Is the dedicated VRAM on the dGPU handled the same way it always has been handled?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> So if I bought a 7850k and used it with my 290x I would see better performance than my Fx-8350 and 290x?
> 
> 
> 
> If you are running Windows XP/Vista/7 and playing Runescape 3(Jave 6/7), ignoring 7850Ks IPC increase, they should be the same.
> 
> If you are running Windows 8/8.1/8.2 and playing Runescape 3(Java 8/9), the A10-7850K+290X w/o Vsync would be much faster than FX+290X w/o Vsync.
> 
> Windows 8 and beyond, the APU with IOMMU 2.x will always be faster than the CPUs with IOMMU 1.26.
Click to expand...

Seronx, since you are here and being somewhat vocal...

Know anything special about infiniband over Hypertransport, or Hypertransport over Infiniband? One or the other, I forget exactly.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Not sure I understand the Runescape 3 bit? Break it down to a more beginner vernacular for me please. As far as gaming for me it's BF4 and WoW primarily. Company of Heroes 2 and some SC2 also.


http://i.imgur.com/zAtnM0C.jpg

Runescape uses Java, I was just inferring the image. As far as gaming goes HSA/Mantle/XDMA/IOMMU2.x, over time the APUs will be faster than CPUs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Seronx, since you are here and being somewhat vocal...
> 
> Know anything special about infiniband over Hypertransport, or Hypertransport over Infiniband? One or the other, I forget exactly.


I don't exactly know how Hypertransport over PCIe/Ethernet/Infiniband actually works.

Ethernet/Infiniband Headers are "Global Headers"
while Hypertransport/PCIe Headers are "Local Headers"

*Local Solutions* will be coherent while *Global Solutions* will be incoherent.

Local Physical Address(CPU or GPU) -> Global Physical Address(NIC/DeviceID)


----------



## Kuivamaa

Something somewhat related - If you check the slide with gaming performance vs a haswell i5 (while they both run a R9 270X I believe) the AMD combo is putting out way more fps on Dirt Showdown.



My guess? DS is notorious for its compute heavy global illumination feature, which made it shine on GCN cards (vs Kepler, that is). Could it be that GI is offloaded to kaveri igpu while the discreet is free to deal with the game?


----------



## yrettete




----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*


I5 4440 Igpu used?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> I5 4440 Igpu used?


Yes they only way those numbers would be true is if the CPU + iGPU are what is used to test with.


----------



## yrettete

Wait for mantle.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Wait for mantle.


Technically mantel will help both side but bring out amds better side


----------



## Durquavian

Have they mentioned Mantle being HSA enabled?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Have they mentioned Mantle being HSA enabled?


Mantle is the start for a gaming-like HSA enabled API format.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

I"ve got a question that might have been asked before but i can't find it.

@seronx are you implying that kaveri can be hybrid xfired with 290x? in theory? or did i miss understand that kaveri +3x 290x post?

next head scratch-er.. we have seen improvements in performance with fast system memory in the iGPU and hybrid Xfire set ups (could be wrong on the hybrid part)

is the bonus kaveri sees with faster ramm utterly negated when using a dGPU?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I"ve got a question that might have been asked before but i can't find it.
> 
> @seronx are you implying that kaveri can be hybrid xfired with 290x? in theory? or did i miss understand that kaveri +3x 290x post?
> 
> next head scratch-er.. we have seen improvements in performance with fast system memory in the iGPU and hybrid Xfire set ups (could be wrong on the hybrid part)
> 
> is the bonus kaveri sees with faster ramm utterly negated when using a dGPU?


Normally in sli or cf it runs only as good as the lowest denominator however hybrid CF doesn't perse have this problem.

To make an example a 7970 with a 7950 would only run as good as 2 7950's (as long both are the same clocks otherwise the 7950 could be faster than a stock 7970)


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I"ve got a question that might have been asked before but i can't find it.
> 
> @seronx are you implying that kaveri can be hybrid xfired with 290x? in theory? or did i miss understand that kaveri +3x 290x post?
> 
> next head scratch-er.. we have seen improvements in performance with fast system memory in the iGPU and hybrid Xfire set ups (could be wrong on the hybrid part)
> 
> is the bonus kaveri sees with faster ramm utterly negated when using a dGPU?


You should watch APU13 or at least read up on it. The idea is that the 290x would be doing the main rendering and the GPU on the APU would be doing physics calculations, or some other less intensive calculation besides rendering.

Mantle will completely kill AFR.

However it would give an advantage to APU with 290x as opposed to CPU with 290x. The APU would be able to offload those additional calcualtions from the main rendering GPU. The CPU would have to do them on the main rendering GPU.

I will refer to PhysX, because what Nvidia did here was the exact wrong answer on what to do. And instead was done for the sake of driving profits.

Nvidia took an additional accelerator card, removed it and put that workload on the GPU that renders. The rendering GPU is almost always the bottleneck in a gaming situation, so it hurt overall frame rate and game performance.

What AMD is going to do with Mantle is remove that. So instead of throwing more calculations on the main bottleneck of the system, you're not only taking those extra calculations and putting them elsewhere, you're taking things that the main rendering GPU would have to do (like global illumination, ray tracing, etc) and splitting up the load.

It's a lot bigger than people think and when Mantle catches on, those who didn't embrace it are going to find themselves left behind by lower range systems that properly divide workloads up and spread the main load of the primary bottleneck in a system across several parts.


----------



## Durquavian

There is so much potential here, for the first time in a long time, dare say since dual core release. But like that software has a big part in this. Thank god for Mantle.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> You should watch APU13 or at least read up on it. The idea is that the 290x would be doing the main rendering and the GPU on the APU would be doing physics calculations, or some other less intensive calculation besides rendering.
> 
> Mantle will completely kill AFR.
> 
> However it would give an advantage to APU with 290x as opposed to CPU with 290x. The APU would be able to offload those additional calcualtions from the main rendering GPU. The CPU would have to do them on the main rendering GPU.
> 
> I will refer to PhysX, because what Nvidia did here was the exact wrong answer on what to do. And instead was done for the sake of driving profits.
> 
> Nvidia took an additional accelerator card, removed it and put that workload on the GPU that renders. The rendering GPU is almost always the bottleneck in a gaming situation, so it hurt overall frame rate and game performance.
> 
> What AMD is going to do with Mantle is remove that. So instead of throwing more calculations on the main bottleneck of the system, you're not only taking those extra calculations and putting them elsewhere, you're taking things that the main rendering GPU would have to do (like global illumination, ray tracing, etc) and splitting up the load.
> 
> It's a lot bigger than people think and when Mantle catches on, those who didn't embrace it are going to find themselves left behind by lower range systems that properly divide workloads up and spread the main load of the primary bottleneck in a system across several parts.


I've done some reading, unfortunately with a heavy work load IRL I've not really had much chance.









Just sereox's statement threw me for a curve ball. and i miss understood its meaning.

is fast memory + dGPU touched on at all in the apu13? i've still got a fair amount to read on it.

p.s. +rep great anwser


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> You should watch APU13 or at least read up on it. The idea is that the 290x would be doing the main rendering and the GPU on the APU would be doing physics calculations, or some other less intensive calculation besides rendering.
> 
> Mantle will completely kill AFR.
> 
> However it would give an advantage to APU with 290x as opposed to CPU with 290x. The APU would be able to offload those additional calcualtions from the main rendering GPU. The CPU would have to do them on the main rendering GPU.
> 
> I will refer to PhysX, because what Nvidia did here was the exact wrong answer on what to do. And instead was done for the sake of driving profits.
> 
> Nvidia took an additional accelerator card, removed it and put that workload on the GPU that renders. The rendering GPU is almost always the bottleneck in a gaming situation, so it hurt overall frame rate and game performance.
> 
> What AMD is going to do with Mantle is remove that. So instead of throwing more calculations on the main bottleneck of the system, you're not only taking those extra calculations and putting them elsewhere, you're taking things that the main rendering GPU would have to do (like global illumination, ray tracing, etc) and splitting up the load.
> 
> It's a lot bigger than people think and when Mantle catches on, those who didn't embrace it are going to find themselves left behind by lower range systems that properly divide workloads up and spread the main load of the primary bottleneck in a system across several parts.
> 
> 
> 
> I've done some reading, unfortunately with a heavy work load IRL I've not really had much chance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just sereox's statement threw me for a curve ball. and i miss understood its meaning.
> 
> is fast memory + dGPU touched on at all in the apu13? i've still got a fair amount to read on it.
Click to expand...

Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.

Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.

There was a small presentation where AMD was hinting at a future system where APUs are placed on add-in cards, like GPUs are now, and those add in cards all can use coherent memory. Inifiband was mentioned in it as well. I tried looking for you and I couldn't see it, it wasn't a big presentation at all. I recall just one guy talking about it and mentioning it was far off.

But it did relatively confirm that a sort of platform for AMD which would allow dCPU + dGPU + APU to all access shared memory in a single system.

Whether it actually happens or not is still up in the air. I also talked with a drunk guy from IBM in a litecoin chatroom and he told me some nice things too.

But I think that AMD has every motive to keep absolutely quiet about plans like that, because it would completely cannibalize APU sales. I wouldn't bother waiting for it to come either. It might never come at all and IMO it'll be a while before it actually shows up.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.
> 
> Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.
> 
> There was a small presentation where AMD was hinting at a future system where APUs are placed on add-in cards, like GPUs are now, and those add in cards all can use coherent memory. Inifiband was mentioned in it as well. I tried looking for you and I couldn't see it, it wasn't a big presentation at all. I recall just one guy talking about it and mentioning it was far off.
> 
> But it did relatively confirm that a sort of platform for AMD which would allow dCPU + dGPU + APU to all access shared memory in a single system.
> 
> Whether it actually happens or not is still up in the air. I also talked with a drunk guy from IBM in a litecoin chatroom and he told me some nice things too.
> 
> But I think that AMD has every motive to keep absolutely quiet about plans like that, because it would completely cannibalize APU sales. I wouldn't bother waiting for it to come either. It might never come at all and IMO it'll be a while before it actually shows up.


"if its possible it isn't ready yet" is essentially the short of what i take from that. cool beans.

so i don't need to selll something off to fund a 290x lightning to pair with it. lmao! I don't really want to consider it until they overhaul or at least seriously update their games bundle.

This is good news for me.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.
> 
> Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.


hang on now, I think you might have gotten ahead of yourself. Infiniband is a system interconnect and it rated in gb, or gigabits. PCI-E is an internal interconnect and is rated for GB, or gigabytes. Even if you used a massive 12x infiniband connection on the highest end system possible you only get a theoretical max throughput of 37.5GB/s with infiniband before overhead is accounted for. And that type of interconnect would cost a small fortune for 1, let alone using it a few times, as well as the amount of space those controllers will take up for that many infiniband connection channels. More often you will see a midrange solution that is actually affordable and it will run about 40-50 gigabit speed, which is only 6.5 GB/s at theoretical best.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.
> 
> Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.
> 
> 
> 
> hang on now, I think you might have gotten ahead of yourself. Infiniband is a system interconnect and it rated in gb, or gigabits. PCI-E is an internal interconnect and is rated for GB, or gigabytes. Even if you used a massive 12x infiniband connection on the highest end system possible you only get a theoretical max throughput of 37.5GB/s with infiniband before overhead is accounted for. And that type of interconnect would cost a small fortune for 1, let alone using it a few times, as well as the amount of space those controllers will take up for that many infiniband connection channels. More often you will see a midrange solution that is actually affordable and it will run about 40-50 gigabit speed, which is only 6.5 GB/s at theoretical best.
Click to expand...

Which is why I said it would be a ways off. I know there are 8 bits to a byte, so all your calculations are right. But regardless even current Inifiband bandwidth is much faster than PCIe 3.0. But AMD would need to devise a better controller and they would still need more bandwidth.

But just an FYI, AMD is not the only one looking to do things like this. Intel is leaving PCIe 3.0 behind for QPI direct to Knight's Landing to share memory: http://www.realworldtech.com/knights-landing-details/2/

2133mhz DDR3 is about 17GB/s. Dual channel already would bury PCIe 3.0. Current infiniband would at least be able to cope with it.

Which of course is why I was mentioning Hypertransport over Infiniband or Inifiniband over Hypertransport to Seronx earlier, because AMD would not directly be using Infiniband, but some sort of alternate version of it.

But the company that comes up with a working implementation of main processing unit and additional add in boards all sharing memory and working together very well will be the winner of several HPC contracts and will more than likely establish themselves as the workstation platform.

The goals of HSA and Mantle (contrary to what everyone has been saying, Mantle is a complete god send for people who do 3d work, from running GI calculations to improving 3d viewport performance) seem to align very well with what that type of platform would be useful for.

To me it seems almost assured that something like this will eventually come out of AMD. There is no way they could use sub $170 APUs as their high end product for the rest of the company's life. There is a ton of money to be made from the professional and HPC market, and more often than not vendors like Nvidia and AMD find themselves adding an extra zero to the cost of the product just because it's a FirePro/Opteron/Quadro/Tesla/etc.

I simply don't think that AMD would be pushing HSA and Mantle so gamers get higher frame rates and your budget APU that's less than half the speed of a high end GPU can go twice as fast when decoding jpegs.

That just seems like a lot of wasted potential and a lot of wasted profits, doesn't it? If I were the CEO, I'd be telling those engineers they better come up with something to get HSA and Mantle into the lucrative professional market as soon as possible. One large university or for profit organization that needs massive compute performance ordering 10,000+ AMD products at professional rates would be quite massive compare to AMD trying to get OEMs to use their products in laptops and phones.


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It only works with XDMA engines.
> 
> Kaveri+Hawaii XT
> 512+2816
> 
> Kaveri+Hawaii Pro
> 512+2560
> 
> Kaveri+Bonaire XTX(R7 260X, the 7790 which is Bonaire XT has it disabled)
> 512+896
> 
> Kaveri+Oland XT
> 512+384
> 
> So, if you find a board with 3 * pcie 3.0 x16 slots via a switch.
> 
> 512+2816+2816+2816 => 8960 ALUs and Mantle and HSA can use all of them without Legacy Crossfire being enabled.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It works with PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0, it is recommend for slots with an aggregate of 16 GB/s at least.
> 
> FX + R9 290X + R9 290X or FX + R7 260X + R7 260X will work the same way with A10-7850K + R9 290X + R9 290X or A10-7850K + R7 260X + R7 260X.
> 
> The FX solution will be slower do to system memory and GPU memory not being fused.
> 
> If you want to maximize system and GPU memory, you'll want to put the HDMI/Displayport into the Motherboard not the Discrete GPU. The reason for this is that XDMA will send all the render data to the APU. The APU will handle presentation while the GPUs will handle all the data and processing.












ONLY 5 DAYS!


----------



## Seronx

GPU Task Begin -> GPU Command (Spooky or Spectre) -> GPU Processing (1-2x (Oland, Bonaire, Hawaii)) -> GPU Post-Processing and Presentation (Spooky or Spectre) -> GPU Task End

Post-processing is smooth video frame blending as the (Spooky and Spectre) iGPUs receives finished frames from the dGPUs in the slots. This uses the "FreeSync" technology when available so be sure to put the HDMI or DisplayPort into the motherboard.

Spooky and Spectre are the names for Kaveri's iGPUs.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

What is the difference between Spooky and Spectre exactly? Is it just binning?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> What is the difference between Spooky and Spectre exactly? Is it just binning?


One has 8 CUs and the other has 6 CUs, both should be at 720 MHz.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Oh, they're actually different iGPUs? I thought it would just be binned chips. That almost seems like too much effort, but I guess Intel has different iGPUs for every level of chip (e.g. Pentium, i3, i5)


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Oh, they're actually different iGPUs?


They are the same iGPU but one has 2 CUs disabled.

Spectre:
512 ALUs
32 TMUs
8 ROPs

Spooky:
384 ALUs (128 ALUs disabled)
24 TMUs (8 TMUs disabled)
8 ROPs

Desktop (45W <-> 95W) = 720 MHz stock
Mobile (15W <-> 35W) = 500 MHz stock

I think with the big change between each SKU is CPU clock rates.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

That's what I meant by binning, but okee-doke. I think it's 16 ROPs. Every single 7700 card, all the way down to the 7730, has 16 and every single R7 card except Oland-based GPUs have 16 as well.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> That's what I meant by binning, but okee-doke. I think it's 16 ROPs. Every single 7700 card, all the way down to the 7730, has 16 and every single R7 card except Oland-based GPUs have 16 as well.


Kaveri and Hawaii share the same style of render back ends.

Kaveri 2 RBEs => 8 cROPs + 32 zROPs
Hawaii 16 RBEs => 64 cROPs +256 zROPs

Hawaii:
http://cdn5.thinkcomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/GCN-2.0-Render-BackEnds.jpg

Kaveri:
http://i.imgur.com/i5s3xTK.jpg

If you check it out there is a typo for Kaveri... Kaveri's 2 RBEs provide the same amount of power as Hawaii's 16 RBEs.

So according to AMD, Kaveri has 64 cROPs + 256 zROPs.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

WHY? ROPs are the biggest limitations for GPUs. I'm not kidding. Look at benchmarks between two 7850s and a 7970 or two 760s and a 780, Titan, or hell, even a complete GK110 780Ti. The lower-end cards, despite having the same or fewer SPUs and TMUs and a massive increase in latency are actually better because of more ROPs. That's the only explanation I can think of.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.
> 
> Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.
> 
> There was a small presentation where AMD was hinting at a future system where APUs are placed on add-in cards, like GPUs are now, and those add in cards all can use coherent memory. Inifiband was mentioned in it as well. I tried looking for you and I couldn't see it, it wasn't a big presentation at all. I recall just one guy talking about it and mentioning it was far off.
> 
> But it did relatively confirm that a sort of platform for AMD which would allow dCPU + dGPU + APU to all access shared memory in a single system.
> 
> Whether it actually happens or not is still up in the air. I also talked with a drunk guy from IBM in a litecoin chatroom and he told me some nice things too.
> 
> But I think that AMD has every motive to keep absolutely quiet about plans like that, because it would completely cannibalize APU sales. I wouldn't bother waiting for it to come either. It might never come at all and IMO it'll be a while before it actually shows up.


That add-on card was only mentioned in a server context, not for desktop systems.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> WHY? ROPs are the biggest limitations for GPUs. I'm not kidding. Look at benchmarks between two 7850s and a 7970 or two 760s and a 780, Titan, or hell, even a complete GK110 780Ti. The lower-end cards, despite having the same or fewer SPUs and TMUs and a massive increase in latency are actually better because of more ROPs. That's the only explanation I can think of.


Raster operation units mostly help with higher resolution and post processing something that both isn't the goal of Kaveri








It has enough to game at 1080P low and medium settings but the true reason they are pushing lies with their ultra mobile line later on.

They need to do this to later take and advantage in a space where every drop of performance counts.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Raster operation units mostly help with higher resolution and post processing something that both isn't the goal of Kaveri


Kaveri is the first AMD APU to support 4K.

Ability to upscale 1080p to 2160p via HEVC(VCE).
Ability to display 2160p content @ 60 Hz.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Sort of, that is what I am getting at regarding Infiniband. PCIe 3.0 at under 16GB/s is not nearly enough bandwidth for HSA over dGPU.
> 
> Inifiband can offer a lot more bandwidth, enough to make something like that possible.
> 
> There was a small presentation where AMD was hinting at a future system where APUs are placed on add-in cards, like GPUs are now, and those add in cards all can use coherent memory. Inifiband was mentioned in it as well. I tried looking for you and I couldn't see it, it wasn't a big presentation at all. I recall just one guy talking about it and mentioning it was far off.
> 
> But it did relatively confirm that a sort of platform for AMD which would allow dCPU + dGPU + APU to all access shared memory in a single system.
> 
> Whether it actually happens or not is still up in the air. I also talked with a drunk guy from IBM in a litecoin chatroom and he told me some nice things too.
> 
> But I think that AMD has every motive to keep absolutely quiet about plans like that, because it would completely cannibalize APU sales. I wouldn't bother waiting for it to come either. It might never come at all and IMO it'll be a while before it actually shows up.
> 
> 
> 
> That add-on card was only mentioned in a server context, not for desktop systems.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, server context, like Opterons. Like the Opteron that is sitting right next to me in a consumer motherboard, with consumer ram, power supply, case, and graphics card? Or the Opterons that were used in workstations.

AMD can't keep Opteron server exclusive anymore, not when they have such horrific market share for x86 servers.

And look at how much not having Opteron on consumer socket is hurting AMD with AM3+. They would at least be selling 8m/16c to _some_ people if there were some sort of server or workstation that used AM3+. But instead they just completely leave consumers who want that multi-threaded performance hanging out to dry.

What good is that? AMD is completely crippling their high end offerings by not giving consumers access to Opterons and server chips. To add insult to injury, AMD is the only company in the world that is capable of a dual CPU platform that can be overclocked at all (via bus overclocking), and the people who actually want it (I know they're extremely few) can't even get it.

It makes absolutely no sense for AMD to divide their product stack like this when they're constantly talking about how they're trying to diversify their products so that they can be interchangeably used as building blocks.

This is what I'm getting at. There's little reason why AMD wouldn't just merge HEDT, workstation, and some server platforms together. It actually would be easier on AMD, it'd be better for customers, and it gives people more choices.

I know without a doubt I'd have a 6m/12c CPU right now and it'd be OCed if it were possible.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Oh yeah, server context, like Opterons. Like the Opteron that is sitting right next to me in a consumer motherboard, with consumer ram, power supply, case, and graphics card? Or the Opterons that were used in workstations.
> 
> AMD can't keep Opteron server exclusive anymore, not when they have such horrific market share for x86 servers.
> 
> And look at how much not having Opteron on consumer socket is hurting AMD with AM3+. They would at least be selling 8m/16c to _some_ people if there were some sort of server or workstation that used AM3+. But instead they just completely leave consumers who want that multi-threaded performance hanging out to dry.
> 
> What good is that? AMD is completely crippling their high end offerings by not giving consumers access to Opterons and server chips. To add insult to injury, AMD is the only company in the world that is capable of a dual CPU platform that can be overclocked at all (via bus overclocking), and the people who actually want it (I know they're extremely few) can't even get it.
> 
> It makes absolutely no sense for AMD to divide their product stack like this when they're constantly talking about how they're trying to diversify their products so that they can be interchangeably used as building blocks.
> 
> This is what I'm getting at. There's little reason why AMD wouldn't just merge HEDT, workstation, and some server platforms together. It actually would be easier on AMD, it'd be better for customers, and it gives people more choices.
> 
> I know without a doubt I'd have a 6m/12c CPU right now and it'd be OCed if it were possible.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Oh yeah, server context, like Opterons. Like the Opteron that is sitting right next to me in a consumer motherboard, with consumer ram, power supply, case, and graphics card? Or the Opterons that were used in workstations.
> 
> AMD can't keep Opteron server exclusive anymore, not when they have such horrific market share for x86 servers.
> 
> And look at how much not having Opteron on consumer socket is hurting AMD with AM3+. They would at least be selling 8m/16c to _some_ people if there were some sort of server or workstation that used AM3+. But instead they just completely leave consumers who want that multi-threaded performance hanging out to dry.
> 
> What good is that? AMD is completely crippling their high end offerings by not giving consumers access to Opterons and server chips. To add insult to injury, AMD is the only company in the world that is capable of a dual CPU platform that can be overclocked at all (via bus overclocking), and the people who actually want it (I know they're extremely few) can't even get it.
> 
> It makes absolutely no sense for AMD to divide their product stack like this when they're constantly talking about how they're trying to diversify their products so that they can be interchangeably used as building blocks.
> 
> This is what I'm getting at. There's little reason why AMD wouldn't just merge HEDT, workstation, and some server platforms together. It actually would be easier on AMD, it'd be better for customers, and it gives people more choices.
> 
> I know without a doubt I'd have a 6m/12c CPU right now and it'd be OCed if it were possible.[/quoteP]
> 
> More than a slight exaggeration. The Opterons are on G sockets not on consumer motherboards as you suggested,a. server motherboard


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Oh yeah, server context, like Opterons. Like the Opteron that is sitting right next to me in a consumer motherboard, with consumer ram, power supply, case, and graphics card? Or the Opterons that were used in workstations.
> 
> AMD can't keep Opteron server exclusive anymore, not when they have such horrific market share for x86 servers.
> 
> And look at how much not having Opteron on consumer socket is hurting AMD with AM3+. They would at least be selling 8m/16c to _some_ people if there were some sort of server or workstation that used AM3+. But instead they just completely leave consumers who want that multi-threaded performance hanging out to dry.
> 
> What good is that? AMD is completely crippling their high end offerings by not giving consumers access to Opterons and server chips. To add insult to injury, AMD is the only company in the world that is capable of a dual CPU platform that can be overclocked at all (via bus overclocking), and the people who actually want it (I know they're extremely few) can't even get it.
> 
> It makes absolutely no sense for AMD to divide their product stack like this when they're constantly talking about how they're trying to diversify their products so that they can be interchangeably used as building blocks.
> 
> This is what I'm getting at. There's little reason why AMD wouldn't just merge HEDT, workstation, and some server platforms together. It actually would be easier on AMD, it'd be better for customers, and it gives people more choices.
> 
> I know without a doubt I'd have a 6m/12c CPU right now and it'd be OCed if it were possible.


I am well aware of the presentation. It was made by an AMD manager from the Server division. The drop in card is designed for server motherboards.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Oh yeah, server context, like Opterons. Like the Opteron that is sitting right next to me in a consumer motherboard, with consumer ram, power supply, case, and graphics card? Or the Opterons that were used in workstations.
> 
> AMD can't keep Opteron server exclusive anymore, not when they have such horrific market share for x86 servers.
> 
> And look at how much not having Opteron on consumer socket is hurting AMD with AM3+. They would at least be selling 8m/16c to _some_ people if there were some sort of server or workstation that used AM3+. But instead they just completely leave consumers who want that multi-threaded performance hanging out to dry.
> 
> What good is that? AMD is completely crippling their high end offerings by not giving consumers access to Opterons and server chips. To add insult to injury, AMD is the only company in the world that is capable of a dual CPU platform that can be overclocked at all (via bus overclocking), and the people who actually want it (I know they're extremely few) can't even get it.
> 
> It makes absolutely no sense for AMD to divide their product stack like this when they're constantly talking about how they're trying to diversify their products so that they can be interchangeably used as building blocks.
> 
> This is what I'm getting at. There's little reason why AMD wouldn't just merge HEDT, workstation, and some server platforms together. It actually would be easier on AMD, it'd be better for customers, and it gives people more choices.
> 
> I know without a doubt I'd have a 6m/12c CPU right now and it'd be OCed if it were possible.
> 
> 
> 
> I am well aware of the presentation. It was made by an AMD manager from the Server division. The drop in card is designed for server motherboards.
Click to expand...

And the point I'm making is that AMD was much better off when they didn't isolate server parts as much as they used to. AMD is kneecapping themselves right now by not making Opterons available on the same socket as what desktop buyers use.

As it is now, AMD would have to either take a huge risk in selling $400+ 6m/12c parts on AM3+ and sending good dies to consumers instead of server or vice versa. If they were the same, it wouldn't be a problem that they'd have to deal with.

But the issue is only going to get far worse as time goes on. Imagine how many people and companies who need powerful workstations would, given AMD's current situation, be stuck with either a single APU workstation when they're used to buying Intel rigs with between one and four quadros or teslas?

At that point, not only is AMD limiting their choices of consumers, but now software vendors who develop demanding software will have to choose between supporting higher end workstation offerings with Teslas and Quadros or supporting a single APU system.


----------



## yawa

Anybody else find it crazy that we are four days from launch and the leaks are still at a trickle?

Other than the moderately sketchy Puget systems leak and the engineering sample benches, we still have very little in reliable x86 performance.

Ugh. Someone break NDA. Now.


----------



## verovdp

As much as we want to hear more leaked details about Steamroller, Mantle, and the APUs, its only 96 hours until we start to hear the best of what's to come ... so let's keep those folks under the NDAs with all of the info free and clear from the legal authorities!


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Anybody else find it crazy that we are four days from launch and the leaks are still at a trickle?
> 
> Other than the moderately sketchy Puget systems leak and the engineering sample benches, we still have very little in reliable x86 performance.
> 
> Ugh. Someone break NDA. Now.


Considering how AMD handled the Hawaii GPU release, I'm not surprised by what's happening with SR at all. AMD has finally learnt the best way to hype a product is to not talk about it and let people who are enthusiastic about the product talk about it. At least that way, if everyone is wrong, there's not another JF-AMD.

Either that or this is more classic AMD, when they stay quiet about good products and then hype disappointments. I am not sure, Hawaii caught a lot of people off guard and it was a really good strategy for AMD, specially considering you still can find R9 series sold out after the coin mining hype died down.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I was surprised about the 512-bit bus and 4GB VRAM myself, as least after I had learned a bit about GPUs. The Radeon 5000 series had up to a 128-bit bus (I think), 6000 256-bit, and 7000 384-bit, so why shouldn't the 8000 series' flagship have a 512-bit bus? That was my logic until I learned why that wasn't necessarily optimal. I wasn't expecting a Titan-killer but was pleasantly surprised by the VRAM (for 4k and Eyefinity) and the ~Titan-780Ti performance.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *verovdp*
> 
> As much as we want to hear more leaked details about Steamroller, Mantle, and the APUs, its only 96 hours until we start to hear the best of what's to come ... so let's keep those folks under the NDAs with all of the info free and clear from the legal authorities!


I'll take information from actual, reputable sources, please. No more random Asians posting these leaked benchmarks and having Google Translate fail hilariously to translate it to English (or other Western European languages) when news sites, desperate for page views and ad revenue post them as legitimate, authoritative sources.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> And the point I'm making is that AMD was much better off when they didn't isolate server parts as much as they used to. AMD is kneecapping themselves right now by not making Opterons available on the same socket as what desktop buyers use.
> 
> As it is now, AMD would have to either take a huge risk in selling $400+ 6m/12c parts on AM3+ and sending good dies to consumers instead of server or vice versa. If they were the same, it wouldn't be a problem that they'd have to deal with.
> 
> But the issue is only going to get far worse as time goes on. Imagine how many people and companies who need powerful workstations would, given AMD's current situation, be stuck with either a single APU workstation when they're used to buying Intel rigs with between one and four quadros or teslas?
> 
> At that point, not only is AMD limiting their choices of consumers, but now software vendors who develop demanding software will have to choose between supporting higher end workstation offerings with Teslas and Quadros or supporting a single APU system.


And my point is that you can not run a Opteron on a consumer motherboard. You have to have a server motherboard to run an Opteron, I would like you to be more accurate in your remarks.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> At least that way, if everyone is wrong, there's not another JF-AMD.


In his defense, John did say multiple times that all info he posted was about server processors and the increases he said were all true.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> And my point is that you can not run a Opteron on a consumer motherboard. You have to have a server motherboard to run an Opteron, I would like you to be more accurate in your remarks.


It depends, as long as the Opteron is made for the same socket it will run in a consumer board as well. I believe sdlvx is probably referring to owning the legendary Opteron 165. It was one of my first processors too and I ran it in a DFI NF4Ultra board for a while, then a DFI UltraSLI, then a DFI CFX-3200 (still the best board I have ever used in my life), and finally in an ASUS A8N32-SLI board when I fried my DFI. That was the CPU, along with my CFX3200, that I even set a world record on for air overclocking as well as hyper-transport OC.

AMD has a history of packaging Opterons in desktop socket configurations. It was only the more recent stuff that Opteron's were only available on their dedicated server socket boards.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> In his defense, John did say multiple times that all info he posted was about server processors and the increases he said were all true.
> It depends, as long as the Opteron is made for the same socket it will run in a consumer board as well. I believe sdlvx is probably referring to owning the legendary Opteron 165. It was one of my first processors too and I ran it in a DFI NF4Ultra board for a while, then a DFI UltraSLI, then a DFI CFX-3200 (still the best board I have ever used in my life), and finally in an ASUS A8N32-SLI board when I fried my DFI. That was the CPU, along with my CFX3200, that I even set a world record on for air overclocking as well as hyper-transport OC.
> 
> AMD has a history of packaging Opterons in desktop socket configurations. It was only the more recent stuff that servers were only available on their dedicated server socket boards.


Those Opterons are obsolete and those motherboards have not been in productions for years. His point was misleading at best.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Those Opterons are obsolete and those motherboards have not been in productions for years. His point was misleading at best.


Although hasn't been done for a wile what says and could not have produced a multi cup system. It was more marketing strategy than capability


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> In his defense, John did say multiple times that all info he posted was about server processors and the increases he said were all true.
> It depends, as long as the Opteron is made for the same socket it will run in a consumer board as well. I believe sdlvx is probably referring to owning the legendary Opteron 165. It was one of my first processors too and I ran it in a DFI NF4Ultra board for a while, then a DFI UltraSLI, then a DFI CFX-3200 (still the best board I have ever used in my life), and finally in an ASUS A8N32-SLI board when I fried my DFI. That was the CPU, along with my CFX3200, that I even set a world record on for air overclocking as well as hyper-transport OC.
> 
> AMD has a history of packaging Opterons in desktop socket configurations. It was only the more recent stuff that servers were only available on their dedicated server socket boards.
> 
> 
> 
> Those Opterons are obsolete and those motherboards have not been in productions for years. His point was misleading at best.
Click to expand...

My point is that AMD has done it in the past.

The other point, which I haven't made yet, is that AMD is spreading their chips around as much as possible.

APU in server, desktop, laptop. All the same chip.

Small x86 embedded, laptop, tablet, very small form factor desktop. All the same chip

It's the direction AMD has been heading in after dividing everything up so much with Llano/FX/Opteron.

It also completely aligns with statements AMD has made like "leveraging IP better" and spreading their product lines.

However don't you dare talk smack about Opteron 165. The chip was legendary and you have no idea how many tears of Intel fanboys who wouldn't overclock I've drank when my $100 Opteron 165 @ 2.9ghz beat their stock E6600s they spent $300+ on.








Those were really great times, because all the Intel fanboys were running around going "LOL AMD IS DEAD" and I was going, "how's your stock E6600? This CPU cost me $99!"

I still use that rig to this day. It's running Debian right now, for nefarious purposes, at 2.7ghz. I also retro-fit a Noctua u12p into the socket by making my own custom mount for it.

So I guess what I"m getting at, is don't mock a golden era chip. The same golden era where you could buy an Opteron chip and put in a consumer motherboard and OC it.


----------



## L4dd

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> ... The Radeon 5000 series had up to a 128-bit bus (I think) ...


The Radeon 5000 series had a maximum bus width of 256 bits.


----------



## chrisjames61

I have two Opteron 165's. They were in some kind of server board I ditched. Are their any enthusiast boards where I could try to overclock them?


----------



## yawa

Well this was a rather coy response I was not expecting. Possible but not likely seems to be the word.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chrisjames61*
> 
> I have two Opteron 165's. They were in some kind of server board I ditched. Are their any enthusiast boards where I could try to overclock them?


If they are socket 939's then yes there are lots of good old boards to oc them on.


----------



## chrisjames61

They are socket 939. Asus, Gigabyte? Would I be looking at things like robust vrm's and phase power in the board as we do for Piledriver 6 and 8 core cpu's?


----------



## chrisjames61

Forgot to mention I would love a dual socket enthusiast board to try and OC. Do they exist?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Only for Intel and even then only for Xeons. AMD has none as far as I know and Steamroller ain't getting one. Kaveri is supposed to reduce latency and dual-sockets do the opposite. Maybe Carrizo or Basilisk.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chrisjames61*
> 
> They are socket 939. Asus, Gigabyte? Would I be looking at things like robust vrm's and phase power in the board as we do for Piledriver 6 and 8 core cpu's?


You would be looking for some DFI NF4 boards to overclock those Opteron's with. They had what is now considered standard bios options way back when it was a rarity to have good OC options in the bios. They are also built for overclocking and have heatsinks on the VRMs which most boards did not do back then. I believe the CPU is also supplied off the 5v rail on at least some DFI boards which allows for higher voltage to go to the CPU. If you cannot find a good DFI board then an ASUS A8N32-SLI would probably be the way to go.


----------



## nitrubbb

stock coolers will be crap I assume right?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

When aren't they? They're okay if you're running stock but that's it.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chrisjames61*
> 
> They are socket 939. Asus, Gigabyte? Would I be looking at things like robust vrm's and phase power in the board as we do for Piledriver 6 and 8 core cpu's?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130484

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136152

A couple of good overclocking 939 boards.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> stock coolers will be crap I assume right?


Yeah, I just removed the plastic mounting thing on the board to measure where to drill holes, cut a piece of metal that was long enough to make it across both, drilled the holes, and then bolted it down wth the plastic thing back on. I'd take a picture but the heatsink is so big on this little board that it covers almost everything up. It barely clears the ram.

It's a fun platform to overclock on, you only have a 9x multiplier and it's all bus beyond that. I'd probably go with DFI or Asus boards. Gigabytes, from my experience, don't handle high bus speeds as well, and you'll need to go 300+ to get good speeds.


----------



## Khalenth

http://foro.noticias3d.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=421821

first review?


----------



## djohny24

Yup! But i have no drivers for this igp.

I used an hd 7950 @ 1100/1500mhz to see bottleneck evolution.

Stock 3700mhz cpu. Overclock 4560mhz with 1,5v. Really really good temps.

Imc works right up to 2544mhz like trinity.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Usually, I hate people like this, but desperate times...

Pics or it didn't happen!


----------



## iRUSH

Subscribing


----------



## EniGma1987

Ewww that is some nasty memory latency, and fairly bad l2 latency still as well. Have all these APU's and FX processors really had that slow of memory? I didn't realize that...


----------



## Durquavian

So I cant read Spanish so were they extrapolating the results from a 5800k to what we could expect for a 7850K?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> So I cant read Spanish so were they extrapolating the results from a 5800k to what we could expect for a 7850K?


I have a Spanish friend not that I asked him to read it to me still judging by how they compare to a 5800 rather than a 6800 I'll wait for later reviews.


----------



## SoloCamo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> However don't you dare talk smack about Opteron 165. The chip was legendary and you have no idea how many tears of Intel fanboys who wouldn't overclock I've drank when my $100 Opteron 165 @ 2.9ghz beat their stock E6600s they spent $300+ on.


Still using an Opteron 180 for my Lubuntu box. Keep it at 2.6ghz as I really don't have a need for anything faster


----------



## sugarhell

Hmm kaveri seems to pwn trinity on gaming as a cpu


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Ewww that is some nasty memory latency, and fairly bad l2 latency still as well. Have all these APU's and FX processors really had that slow of memory? I didn't realize that...


the North bridge is stuck at 200mhz on kaveri hence the horrible lantncy for 2144hz ram


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> the North bridge is stuck at 200mhz on kaveri hence the horrible lantncy for 2144hz ram


Glitch or it is idling.

The memory latency can be from the fact that DDR3 is not the native memory interface with Kaveri.


----------



## opty165

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *SoloCamo*
> 
> Still using an Opteron 180 for my Lubuntu box. Keep it at 2.6ghz as I really don't have a need for anything faster


Did someone mention Opty 165....









My very first dual core chip with DDR500 memory. Those were the days...


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> I have a Spanish friend not that I asked him to read it to me still judging by how they compare to a 5800 rather than a 6800 I'll wait for later reviews.


Is there an alternative link (or benchmarks uploaded elsewhere)? I can access the main site but when I try to enter their forum, I get a message in spanish that the administrator has blocked my ip somehow.


----------



## djohny24

You can watch it in Wccftech.

Finally i have drivers. I used a 5800K because is the same frequency than kaveri to compare ipc performance.

Im benching gpgpu now, stay tuned









Awesome opencl performance.


----------



## Kuivamaa

4.5Ghz is a decent overclock on the cpu. How far can the iGPU be clocked?


----------



## FlanK3r

OC is +- the same as my A10-7850K


----------



## djohny24

Oc in igp is 900mhz in bios + 6bclk. Gpuz cant apply that changes so the real frequency is near 1ghz. Fully stable.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlanK3r*
> 
> OC is +- the same as my A10-7850K


you have one already? share stuff with us!


----------



## FlanK3r

I cant man, NDA







. But I can tell, its not bad, specially clock to clock







.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlanK3r*
> 
> I cant man, NDA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> . But I can tell, its not bad, specially clock to clock
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .


Ah that way I see, could you give us an insight as to why the bandwidth has greatly improved while the latency also sky-rocketed the only thing I could come up with is that hUMA takes more time to order things and therefore the is a lot of communicating before an actual write occurs.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *djohny24*
> 
> Oc in igp is 900mhz in bios + 6bclk. Gpuz cant apply that changes so the real frequency is near 1ghz. Fully stable.


That is good news I wonder how high it'll go.


----------



## djohny24

Very very nice opencl performance...


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Is there an alternative link (or benchmarks uploaded elsewhere)? I can access the main site but when I try to enter their forum, I get a message in spanish that the administrator has blocked my ip somehow.


OMG they know who you are.


----------



## monstercameron

JESES I need you to post the other results man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> The memory latency can be from the fact that DDR3 is not the native memory interface with Kaveri.


Wait... It isn't? But I thought there were no plans of having DDR4 with consumer Kaveri?

I'm confused now


----------



## yrettete

If overclocked, how much better does it become ?


----------



## yrettete

It says up to 12 cores ?

what does that mean ? It's only 4 cores ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> It says up to 12 cores ?
> 
> what does that mean ? It's only 4 cores ?


4 cores cpu+ 8 cores gcn


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> It says up to 12 cores ?
> 
> what does that mean ? It's only 4 cores ?


8 cores should be for the GPU.


----------



## heroxoot

So how much is Kaveri supposed to cost?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So how much is Kaveri supposed to cost?


The 2m/4c 384SP A8-7600 starts at 120 dollar.


----------



## Asterox

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> I*t says up to 12 cores ?*
> 
> what does that mean ? It's only 4 cores ?


On this picture below it is much better explained.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So how much is Kaveri supposed to cost?
> 
> 
> 
> The 2m/4c 384SP A8-7600 starts at 120 dollar.
Click to expand...

That sounds ok. So the 7850k will probably be around 200. I want AMD to announce FM is the new socket and all new CPU will use it so I can either switch or contemplate it. Though I still feel my 8150 is doing a good job for gaming.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> That sounds ok. So the 7850k will probably be around 200. I want AMD to announce FM is the new socket and all new CPU will use it so I can either switch or contemplate it. Though I still feel my 8150 is doing a good job for gaming.


No way as high as $200. Tht will only happen until the supply chain is full. I will wager the price will be between $169 to $179.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> No way as high as $200. Tht will only happen until the supply chain is full. I will wager the price will be between $169 to $179.


I hope the price will be good. I am helping a guy at work build a new rig his budget is 550. I'd rather he get something that will last a bit.. surprisingly as long as it's in that range it will fit. I'm amazed at how cheap of a build it can be


----------



## yrettete

but you need a new motherboard

so it would be about 200 altgether

sell your current set up for maybe 140,

it's cheap overrall


----------



## Khalenth

So, for games, FX-8320 or A10-7850K ? with R9 280X


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> but you need a new motherboard
> 
> so it would be about 200 altgether
> 
> sell your current set up for maybe 140,
> 
> it's cheap overrall


Lolz. If I was to change setups. I'd have that much left rover but it's a new build for someone else

@khalenth I'd still say 8320 would be better if overclocked. But it's starting to get closer


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Khalenth*
> 
> So, for games, FX-8320 or A10-7850K ? with R9 280X


Wait for reviews. My guess is that FX will win the majority but A10 will have the upper hand in poorly threaded titles like Arma III or SCII. Although you won't be seeing much difference on GPU bound games anyway between A10, FX or i5 for that matter.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Khalenth*
> 
> So, for games, FX-8320 or A10-7850K ? with R9 280X


7850K with a 260x seems like the sweetspot to me hybrid CF


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> 7850K with a 260x seems like the sweetspot to me hybrid CF


Why not pair with a 270x. It's only 150 right now.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Why not pair with a 270x. It's only 150 right now.


Because hybrid CF might not work with it as it isn't the GCN refresh








That being said in Mantle games that wouldn't matter since it could run with any GCN card:


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Because hybrid CF might not work with it as it isn't the GCN refresh
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That being said in Mantle games that wouldn't matter since it could run with any GCN card:


Hmm. Will have to check that out.. I figured 270s would but not the 280s and up


----------



## Khalenth

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> 7850K with a 260x seems like the sweetspot to me hybrid CF


So, A10-7850K+260x it's better than FX-8320+280x ?


----------



## Deadboy90

No way. Its cheaper though.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Khalenth*
> 
> So, A10-7850K+260x it's better than FX-8320+280x ?


896 + 512 is significantly less than 2048 but a bit more than 1280 so I don't think it will be stronger than a 280x.
It should however be the best price/perf on the market and slightly beat the 270x.

Considering it is faster than the Haswell i3 by quite a lot and ties with a sandy 2,8GHz i5 2400 while costing less than both.

Value example (normal and hybrid CF):
Intel
i5 200$ + 270x 150$ = 350$

AMD
A8-7600 120$ + 270x 150$ = 270$ (no hybrid CF ties or loses in games with a few % judging form those Kaveri slides)
A10-7700k 160$ + 260x 130% = 290$ (more frames and the ability to OC the onboard gpu in Kaveri is confirmed to go up to 1GHz and the cpu can doe 4,5 with relative ease)

Of course there is another setup that will most likely be the setup of choice and that would be a 384/512SP card to bundle with Kaveri respectively 250 and 250x.
A8-7600 120$ + 250 70$ = 190$

The cheapest capable gaming rig would be a single A8-7600 with no extra gpu to CF with that would force you to play medium or low great for those that are only in it for the gameplay.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Glitch or it is idling.
> 
> The memory latency can be from the fact that DDR3 is not the native memory interface with Kaveri.


I think it must be a bios bug causing it.
the latency is right for 200mhz


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Those Opterons are obsolete and those motherboards have not been in productions for years. His point was misleading at best.


Actually, the six-core "Thuban" Phenom II's were just "Istanbul" core Opterons that were packaged in the AM3 infrastructure for use on regular desktop systems. It's been a long time since AMD sold an Opteron-branded chip that could be used in a regular desktop system, but it wasn't that long ago that they sold a chip designed as an Opteron as a mainstream part.

I certainly would be interested in seeing what a version of the 12-core Opteron 6344 on AM3+ could do, but I guess AMD doesn't figure it would be cost-effective to release such a beast.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Actually, the six-core "Thuban" Phenom II's were just "Istanbul" core Opterons that were packaged in the AM3 infrastructure for use on regular desktop systems. It's been a long time since AMD sold an Opteron-branded chip that could be used in a regular desktop system, but it wasn't that long ago that they sold a chip designed as an Opteron as a mainstream part.


The current Opteron's are 100% the same die as the desktop FX processors too.


----------



## agrims

They are, but with subtle difference's, like they run a different socket... And more importantly, Istanbul wasn't cut down, it was also a 6 core part, so they just repackaged the Thuban's. FX is a cut down version of the Opteron part, and they don't/can't use ECC memory... What we want is a direct server part on FM2+ or AM3+...Could you imagine a world with a 8, 10, 12, or 16 core HSA enabled part with an iGPU? even clocked at 1GHz, it would be a beast!


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Actually, the six-core "Thuban" Phenom II's were just "Istanbul" core Opterons that were packaged in the AM3 infrastructure for use on regular desktop systems. It's been a long time since AMD sold an Opteron-branded chip that could be used in a regular desktop system, but it wasn't that long ago that they sold a chip designed as an Opteron as a mainstream part.
> 
> I certainly would be interested in seeing what a version of the 12-core Opteron 6344 on AM3+ could do, but I guess AMD doesn't figure it would be cost-effective to release such a beast.


Can't argue with that.


----------



## yrettete

is it out or not


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> is it out or not


tomorrow


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Those Opterons are obsolete and those motherboards have not been in productions for years. His point was misleading at best.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, the six-core "Thuban" Phenom II's were just "Istanbul" core Opterons that were packaged in the AM3 infrastructure for use on regular desktop systems. It's been a long time since AMD sold an Opteron-branded chip that could be used in a regular desktop system, but it wasn't that long ago that they sold a chip designed as an Opteron as a mainstream part.
> 
> I certainly would be interested in seeing what a version of the 12-core Opteron 6344 on AM3+ could do, but I guess AMD doesn't figure it would be cost-effective to release such a beast.
Click to expand...

Is the AM3+ CPU physically large enough for 12 modules? Opteron do run 1 module per core right?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Is the AM3+ CPU physically large enough for 12 modules? Opteron do run 1 module per core right?


12 modules? Meaning 24 cores? No I'm pretty sure no standard supported die size is large enough to facilitate that. And yields would be "a la Russian Roulette".

Plus that wouldn't be particularly useful for consumers.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Is the AM3+ CPU physically large enough for 12 modules? Opteron do run 1 module per core right?
> 
> 
> 
> 12 modules? Meaning 24 cores? No I'm pretty sure no standard supported die size is large enough to facilitate that. And yields would be "a la Russian Roulette".
> 
> Plus that wouldn't be particularly useful for consumers.
Click to expand...

Uhm, no? 1 core per module. so 12 cores. AMD didn't always use 1 module for 2 cores you know. Pretty sure thats an FX thing. In fact I'm certain PIIx4 had 1 core per module.


----------



## maarten12100

If AMD want's to russle the enthusiasts all they need to do is make a 4 module cpu only part it would be the same size and they could use a cpu optimized node. (both would be ~240mm^2 but of course you may need extra L3 so that'll take some but a 3 module part can certainly be done)


----------



## yrettete

Why don't they just make a pure Steamroller only CPU ?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Why don't they just make a pure Steamroller only CPU ?


If AMD want's to russle the enthusiasts all they need to do is make a 4 module cpu only part it would be the same size and they could use a cpu optimized node. (both would be ~240mm^2 but of course you may need extra L3 so that'll take some but a 3 module part can certainly be done.
They want to push HSA and force adoption not perse the way to go but it might work. (if I was AMD I would leverage IP by making a Steamroller fm2+ fx and then when HSA has picked up just drop the fx line)


----------



## Kuivamaa

No SR opteron=NO SR FX. Simple as that.


----------



## yrettete

Will it appear on UK ebay tomorrow ?

Are the chips actually in the UK right now ? and just waiting to go on sale ?


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Will it appear on UK ebay tomorrow ?
> 
> Are the chips actually in the UK right now ? and just waiting to go on sale ?


really hope so, im hoping to order from UK amazon


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Is the AM3+ CPU physically large enough for 12 modules? Opteron do run 1 module per core right?


Practically speaking no it is not. The G34 socket Opteron's use the same die as Vishera but have two dies in one CPU to get higher than 8 cores. On AM3+ we do not have enough pins to support such things.


----------



## schmotty

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Why don't they just make a pure Steamroller only CPU ?


It will be called Athlon.


----------



## iRUSH

Athlon hopefully with L3 cache too.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *iRUSH*
> 
> Athlon hopefully with L3 cache too.


That won't be happening seeing as the place of the L3 is taken up by the iGP.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Is the AM3+ CPU physically large enough for 12 modules? Opteron do run 1 module per core right?
> 
> 
> 
> Practically speaking no it is not. The G34 socket Opteron's use the same die as Vishera but have two dies in one CPU to get higher than 8 cores. On AM3+ we do not have enough pins to support such things.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I thought. So for us to get a 12 core cpu we need a new socket.


----------



## iRUSH

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> That won't be happening seeing as the place of the L3 is taken up by the iGP.


Ha, I forget these are just A10's with the iGPU disabled right?


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *schmotty*
> 
> It will be called Athlon.


And where did you get that piece of information? , disinformation??


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> And where did you get that piece of information? , disinformation??


Prior chips. FM2 Athlons are just the APUs but with disabled iGPU and possibly modules. They aren't separate chips if that's what you mean.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Prior chips. FM2 Athlons are just the APUs but with disabled iGPU and possibly modules. They aren't separate chips if that's what you mean.


It's an absolutely useless product for the enthusiast. No L3 cache and still only 4 cores. Why in hell would you want this?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> It's an absolutely useless product for the enthusiast. No L3 cache and still only 4 cores. Why in hell would you want this?


Okay, well. Obvious reasons aside (enthusiast != main market), what if you're making a build with Nvidia and don't have faith in HSA? There's cash in your pocket for more GPUs/RAM/SSD/whatever. There are many reasons for it, and AMD is making profit off chips that would otherwise be in the garbage.


----------



## yrettete

Mantle will make up for how weak Kaveri is.

We have nothing to worry about.


----------



## sugarhell

Its not weak at all for gaming


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Mantle will make up for how weak Kaveri is.
> 
> We have nothing to worry about.


Mantle affects all CPUs, not just AMD. Graphics APIs have lots o' trash code removed so CPUs don't have to sort through as much crap to build a frame for the GPU to render.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Mantle affects all CPUs, not just AMD. Graphics APIs have lots o' trash code removed so CPUs don't have to sort through as much crap to build a frame for the GPU to render.


That should be correct but it would give the GCN based cards an additional gain. So while there is plenty cpu joy to go around for everybody GCN users will get some extra love.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Mantle will make up for how weak Kaveri is.
> 
> We have nothing to worry about.


Yeah, if you like AMD you have to read between the lines. When Kaveri officially launches, I can guarantee you that we will see it compared to much more expensive products and then people going "LOL AMD CANT BEAT INTEL!!"

The first thing you should be doing before you read a review is to look at prices of what they are comparing.



I made that a while ago to prove a point. And it's that cheaper AMD solutions normally get compared to more expensive ones, and then a gigantic circle jerk of "lol amd sux" breaks out.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Yeah, if you like AMD you have to read between the lines. When Kaveri officially launches, I can guarantee you that we will see it compared to much more expensive products and then people going "LOL AMD CANT BEAT INTEL!!"
> 
> The first thing you should be doing before you read a review is to look at prices of what they are comparing.
> 
> *snip*
> 
> I made that a while ago to prove a point. And it's that cheaper AMD solutions normally get compared to more expensive ones, and then a gigantic circle jerk of "lol amd sux" breaks out.


So glad I'm not the only one to do that. That is why the 9590 vs 3960k were legitimate, but 8350 vs 3770k is about as much as I'll accept. AMD's fault for making a $1000 chip that can't keep up. I would like to say that there is a GPU that gets nearly 10% the frames for only 2.5% the price of the top setup. That means 7790s are four times as cost efficient as quad-Titans. I just hope Intel responds, gets their crap together, and releases a decent iGPU for a decent amount of money with decent drivers. In the GPU industry that isn't even asking much!


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> This is exactly what I thought. So for us to get a 12 core cpu we need a new socket.


AMD could *possibly* do a 12 core CPU on the same AM3+ socket if they made a new CPU that was a single die and did not increase memory channels at all. The reason you cant take 12 and 16 core G34 Opteron's and put them on Am3+ is because it is two full die's in an MCM configuration and using 4 memory channels because each die has their own two channels. Not enough pins for this. But if it were a new single die of 12 cores, it may not really take up too many more pins and so may be possible. Btu I dont think AMD is doing that. We will have to see though since Warsaw is 12+ cores and *if* it is a new die (even though it uses Piledriver?) then it could theoretically be possible to make a new 12 core FX. But again even at best it still wouldnt be Steamroller based so only someone like os2wiz would probably buy it


----------



## sugarhell

You cant do a single die 12-core..If they could do it then why they have dual die opterons?


----------



## Himo5

Just to mention A10-7850K has now been on sale here for the last 75 minutes for £130 - if anyone is still interested after reading this thread.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sugarhell*
> 
> You cant do a single die 12-core..If they could do it then why they have dual die opterons?


Well that isn't really true you can with ease actually but the yields would be worse and therefore it would be more expensive than 2 small dies on the same package. You can do as much as 600mm^2 which would mean 10 modules if L3 cache wasn't needed so I'd say 8 modules is doable.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Himo5*
> 
> Just to mention A10-7850K has now been on sale here for the last 75 minutes for £130 - if anyone is still interested after reading this thread.


We made/posted in this thread _because_ we're interested. How much did Richland and Trinity launch for in the UK? More, less, or about the same?


----------



## Himo5

Richland (A10-6800K) came out for £122.33. Trinity (A10-5800K) was £113.95.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> AMD could *possibly* do a 12 core CPU on the same AM3+ socket if they made a new CPU that was a single die and did not increase memory channels at all. The reason you cant take 12 and 16 core G34 Opteron's and put them on Am3+ is because it is two full die's in an MCM configuration and using 4 memory channels because each die has their own two channels. Not enough pins for this. But if it were a new single die of 12 cores, it may not really take up too many more pins and so may be possible. Btu I dont think AMD is doing that. We will have to see though since Warsaw is 12+ cores and *if* it is a new die (even though it uses Piledriver?) then it could theoretically be possible to make a new 12 core FX. But again even at best it still wouldnt be Steamroller based so only someone like os2wiz would probably buy it


Where did you get that crap from??? I want the best of both worlds: lots of cores AND the latest HSA/HUMA apu technology. Once AMD shrinks the process to .20nm they could give us 6 or 8 cores with an apu on FM2+. That is what I would like, but AMD may not be offering it, we will have to wait and see.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Where did you get that crap from??? I want the best of both worlds: lots of cores AND the latest HSA/HUMA apu technology. Once AMD shrinks the process to .20nm they could give us 6 or 8 cores with an apu on FM2+. That is what I would like, but AMD may not be offering it, we will have to wait and see.


Saw a guy kinda mention it which is why I am now, but they could offer 10-12 core even a 16 and the TDP wont be high at all. With HSA they could very well clock the thing at 1Ghz and still do quite a bit of damage.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Where did you get that crap from??? I want the best of both worlds: lots of cores AND the latest HSA/HUMA apu technology. Once AMD shrinks the process to *.20nm* they could give us 6 or 8 cores with an apu on FM2+. That is what I would like, but AMD may not be offering it, we will have to wait and see.


Minor pedantic correction: you're off by a factor of 100. .20nm = 200pm != 20nm. No decimal is required.

Anyway, they actually already can. They could have a 4-core GPU + 8-core CPU on a single die. That would be enough for HSA, at least I would hope, and enough to keep the enthusiasts happy. 20nm I hope, or even 16nm if they skip, will allow for a 12-core GPU + 6-core CPU. I wouldn't count on it, but AMD has extremely dense transistors. Just look at Hawaii vs GK110. They have about the same number of transistors but Nvidia has a massive die in comparison.


----------



## yrettete

I thought battlefield 4 came free with 7850k ?


----------



## yrettete

bundled


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Once AMD shrinks the process to .20nm


With what fabs? AMD has no fabs. It's not their job to work on lithography, it's TSMC's (and Global Foundries, buuuut in the x86 space they're becoming less and less mentionable.)

TSMC already has plans for 20nm FinFETs to be released late 2014 in GPUs and 14nm FinFET in early 2015 or so. Give or take a quarter or two. Likely give.

Either way, AMD doesn't care what you-- an anomaly; wants. And trust me, you're an anomaly. Very few *consumers* are as core-crazy as you. Most consumer applications don't even use more than a few cores except for games which pretty much top out at 8 threads for SOME games.

Just let AMD do their job with their APUs; they're on a very good track for dirt cheap, cool, and simple gaming.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> With what fabs? AMD has no fabs. It's not their job to work on lithography, it's TSMC's (and Global Foundries, buuuut in the x86 space they're becoming less and less mentionable.)
> 
> TSMC already has plans for 20nm FinFETs to be released late 2014 in GPUs and 14nm FinFET in early 2015 or so. Give or take a quarter or two. Likely give.
> 
> Either way, AMD doesn't care what you-- an anomaly; wants. And trust me, you're an anomaly. Very few *consumers* are as core-crazy as you. Most consumer applications don't even use more than a few cores except for games which pretty much top out at 8 threads for SOME games.
> 
> Just let AMD do their job with their APUs; they're on a very good track for dirt cheap, cool, and simple gaming.


I have had this discussion before and I really think that without a viable opteron/FX line, AMD will drop out of big core altogether and focus on their little x86 arch which is their most important market anyway. I just don't see them splashing all that huge R&D money to develop a successor to Excavator only to sell ~$500 laptops and some desktops. So the "anomaly" is an integral part of their product jigsaw.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> With what fabs? AMD has no fabs. It's not their job to work on lithography, it's TSMC's (and Global Foundries, buuuut in the x86 space they're becoming less and less mentionable.)
> 
> TSMC already has plans for 20nm FinFETs to be released late 2014 in GPUs and 14nm FinFET in early 2015 or so. Give or take a quarter or two. Likely give.
> 
> Either way, AMD doesn't care what you-- an anomaly; wants. And trust me, you're an anomaly. Very few *consumers* are as core-crazy as you. Most consumer applications don't even use more than a few cores except for games which pretty much top out at 8 threads for SOME games.
> 
> Just let AMD do their job with their APUs; they're on a very good track for dirt cheap, cool, and simple gaming.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I have had this discussion before and I really think that without a viable opteron/FX line, AMD will drop out of big core altogether and focus on their little x86 arch which is their most important market anyway. I just don't see them splashing all that huge R&D money to develop a successor to Excavator only to sell ~$500 laptops and some desktops. So the "anomaly" is an integral part of their product jigsaw.


you means dabs ?

Yes, they sell it here

http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-a10-7700k-3-5ghz-kaveri-black-edition-95V9.html?q=amd%20a10&src=16


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> It's an absolutely useless product for the enthusiast. No L3 cache and still only 4 cores. Why in hell would you want this?


L2 is moar than enough TBH, the 5800K beat the 4300 at times. Still, you are looking at at least a 15% per core increase.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I have had this discussion before and I really think that without a viable opteron/FX line, AMD will drop out of big core altogether and focus on their little x86 arch which is their most important market anyway. I just don't see them splashing all that huge R&D money to develop a successor to Excavator only to sell ~$500 laptops and some desktops. So the "anomaly" is an integral part of their product jigsaw.


I dont see making a 6-module CPU-only piece as being part of their puzzle to be honest. For consumers; clarify.

However, I definitely agree with you. Unless the successor to Excavator is truly something amazing (the module design wasnt. Bulldozer and Piledriver performed lacklustre in comparison to not only Intel's offerings, but even Barcelona if you take an ideological standpoint. Sure, BD and PD had higher frequencies due to a longer pipeline, and sure, they had more ISA extensions, but their SIMD performance was deficient in all ways and their only saving grace was their pure, disgusting integer throughput. Which, for what the design was, is entirely comparable to Intel's integer throughput and can even beat it with the right balance of branch prediction and low memory latency coupled with PD's innate higher clockrates.

But the benefits end right about there. Sure, BD and PD _weren't_ meant to be speed demon's, but that's how they worked best. They weren't scalable. Period. I personally use a A6-4455M @ 2.1 GHz. Frequency is very important for PD.

So yeah, at this rate, dedicated big cores are dead. I don't see APUs going anywhere for a long time though. And to be honest, I don't see AMD's small cores taking off. Even though Jaguar is architecturally more flexible and capable than Silvermont, Intel has the lithography advantage. In a power-sensitive arena, that can make or break a product. As we're seeing with all the products being put out in the small core market (almost exclusively Silvermont. Not many products use Temash.), that's breaking it for AMD. A lot.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> you means dabs ?
> 
> Yes, they sell it here
> 
> http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-a10-7700k-3-5ghz-kaveri-black-edition-95V9.html?q=amd%20a10&src=16


I don't see how that relates to the discussion..?


----------



## yrettete

how does th 7850k compare to the 8120 ?


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sugarhell*
> 
> You cant do a single die 12-core..If they could do it then why they have dual die opterons?


AMD can do 10 cores in 1 with full L3, lots of PCI-E lanes, and 4 HT controllers, and other IO on a 32nm process node. going to a smaller process would let them fit in another 1 module no problem. They do multiple dies for higher core counts because there are a lot better yields with two half sized dies than 1 large one. 10 core was about the highest they could do at reasonable yields on 32nm. 8 core was much better though.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Where did you get that crap from??? I want the best of both worlds: lots of cores AND the latest HSA/HUMA apu technology. Once AMD shrinks the process to .20nm they could give us 6 or 8 cores with an apu on FM2+. That is what I would like, but AMD may not be offering it, we will have to wait and see.


Sorry. I got that because you have always been saying you dont want small cores with an iGPU and would much rather have a bunch of CPU cores to upgrade from your current processor.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Minor pedantic correction: you're off by a factor of 100. .20nm = 200pm != 20nm. No decimal is required.
> 
> Anyway, they actually already can. They could have a 4-core GPU + 8-core CPU on a single die. That would be enough for HSA, at least I would hope, and enough to keep the enthusiasts happy. 20nm I hope, or even 16nm if they skip, will allow for a 12-core GPU + 6-core CPU. I wouldn't count on it, but AMD has extremely dense transistors. Just look at Hawaii vs GK110. They have about the same number of transistors but Nvidia has a massive die in comparison.


Yes you are absolutely right. an 8CU GPU on a die takes as much space as the l3 does on Vishera. If they used 4 CU's they could easily do that + 8 CPU cores and still be smaller than the current Vishera die. Id love to see an APU style processor with some embedded RAM in the CPU though as the place for L3. Bandwidth and latency would be great and it would let things have some great communication between cores.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> So yeah, at this rate, dedicated big cores are dead. I don't see APUs going anywhere for a long time though. And to be honest, I don't see AMD's small cores taking off. Even though Jaguar is architecturally more flexible and capable than Silvermont, Intel has the lithography advantage. In a power-sensitive arena, that can make or break a product. As we're seeing with all the products being put out in the small core market (almost exclusively Silvermont. Not many products use Temash.), that's breaking it for AMD. A lot.
> I don't see how that relates to the discussion..?


Little core is important for AMD because it is everywhere. Their PC sales champions (netbooks/entry level desktops) are little core based. PS4/XBone are both little core based. The whole attempt to create a succesful x86 tablet cpu is little core based. Their embeded endeavours (7bn$ market as they say) are little core based. Little core is the money maker for AMD atm.

Just like intel, AMD has two sets of x86 chips, "big" and "little". Big targets servers/HPC and mid to enthusiast level desktop -mid/high range laptop whereas little targets entry/mid desktop/notebooks and mobile devices (cellphones/tablets). If AMD decides to not bring steamroller/excavator to big server/HPC (the case atm) a problem arises-there simply aren't enough markets to justify R&D costs for going on. Now SR and EX were designed (and execution goes as planned) years ago with the mindset that AMD will compete in the lucrative server/HPC area. Without this market,there is also no high/enthusiast desktop presence (FX are big opterons essentially) it is highly unlikely that AMD will develop anything past excavator just to sell midrange laptops (high end is occupied by i7 products exclusively) and mid/midhigh desktops (assuming excavator will go toe to toe with i5 that is). They will obviously keep the funds and just stretch their little core range a bit higher to somewhat compete with pentium/i3 and call it a day. That means no more kaveri-type APU stuff.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Little core is important for AMD because it is everywhere. Their PC sales champions (netbooks/entry level desktops) are little core based. PS4/XBone are both little core based. The whole attempt to create a succesful x86 tablet cpu is little core based. Their embeded endeavours (7bn$ market as they say) are little core based. Little core is the money maker for AMD atm.


That wasnt the message I was trying to convey.

I'm not trying to say small cores arent important for AMD. They are.

I'm saying with their current lithography disadvantage, it'll be rightfully hard for AMD to develop a small core that can compete with Intel in the same use case and power envelope (in a little core, power is everything.)

Hell, even today; CPU-wise, a ~4W TDP Z3770 Silvermont-based Atom is equivalent to a Jaguar-based A4-5000... Whose TDP is ~15W. Yes, there are GPU differences but they're not _that_ large when you bring it down to the same power envelope.

The only direct answer to Silvermont that AMD has is the A4-12x0 CPUs. Whose CPU power cannot even try to rival Silvermont. It's a tough situation and whose GPU can't really play many games besides the basic ones which Silvermont can do as well.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I don't see how lithography is relevant,really. Same disadvantage in comparison to intel applies to big core, as well.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I don't see how lithography is relevant,really. Same disadvantage in comparison to intel applies to big core, as well.


In big core, the problem isn't quite as accentuated. No one really cares how much battery life their desktop gets (wait, what?), but they sure as hell do care how much their Windows 8 Tablet gets.

Lithography is entirely relevant.

-22nm is a smaller gate gap than 28nm; naturally requiring less voltage and less propagation time.
-FinFET innately has better control characteristics than planar, allowing for the gate to cover more surface area around the gate gap allowing for not only less voltage to be applied to achieve similar/same control as planar setups, but even better grounding and therefore less leakage.
- Bulk is naturally cooler than SOI; despite the power consumption woes of cross-channel leakage that bulk brings innately (as little as this is; it adds up in the grand scheme of things.)

Sure, maybe in HTPCs and desktops, it doesnt matter. In tabs and small notebooks? It's a world of difference. Entirely relevant. If it were irrelevant, do you think TSMC would be busting their balls getting 20nm and 14nm ready? No.


----------



## yawa

Tiger direct listing Kaveri right now. $179.99 for the 7850k.

Available to buy.


----------



## delboy67

Ive woke, got ready for work, its the 14th wheres the reviews???


----------



## ChrisB17

/\ Same







/\


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> In big core, the problem isn't quite as accentuated. No one really cares how much battery life their desktop gets (wait, what?), but they sure as hell do care how much their Windows 8 Tablet gets.
> 
> Lithography is entirely relevant.
> 
> -22nm is a smaller gate gap than 28nm; naturally requiring less voltage and less propagation time.
> -FinFET innately has better control characteristics than planar, allowing for the gate to cover more surface area around the gate gap allowing for not only less voltage to be applied to achieve similar/same control as planar setups, but even better grounding and therefore less leakage.
> - Bulk is naturally cooler than SOI; despite the power consumption woes of cross-channel leakage that bulk brings innately (as little as this is; it adds up in the grand scheme of things.)
> 
> Sure, maybe in HTPCs and desktops, it doesnt matter. In tabs and small notebooks? It's a world of difference. Entirely relevant. If it were irrelevant, do you think TSMC would be busting their balls getting 20nm and 14nm ready? No.


On desktop performance matters alot and lithography deficit costs performance (since the lower you go the more transistors you can put on a certain die) and power consumption (again tide to lithography) is very essential on HPC/Servers. Not to mention that Silvermont prowess is ridiculously exaggerated-it essentially is a failed lineup with minimal design wins (AMD isn't doing any better here ofc) - z3770 has an SDP of 4.5,not TDP to my knowledge btw.
I still fail to understand why the challenges AMD faces on little core area because of lithography are relevant to the topic ,whether they can go on making big core APU products after excavator without opteron/FX line.


----------



## delboy67

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ChrisB17*
> 
> /\ Same
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> /\


I'm now on my lunch and still no reviews, it must be like a 9am usa time nda then? Ah well I'l wait until tonight


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> On desktop performance matters alot and lithography deficit costs performance (since the lower you go the more transistors you can put on a certain die) and power consumption (again tide to lithography) is very essential on HPC/Servers. Not to mention that Silvermont prowess is ridiculously exaggerated-it essentially is a failed lineup with minimal design wins (AMD isn't doing any better here ofc) - z3770 has an SDP of 4.5,not TDP to my knowledge btw.
> I still fail to understand why the challenges AMD faces on little core area because of lithography are relevant to the topic ,whether they can go on making big core APU products after excavator without opteron/FX line.


Power. It has nothing to do with size. Power consumption is EVERYTHING with little cores. Lithography makes a night and day difference with power consumption. It is entirely relevant. That is all.


----------



## nitrubbb

recommend me an air cooler for kaveri


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> I'm now on my lunch and still no reviews, it must be like a 9am usa time nda then? Ah well I'l wait until tonight


As of my post right now it just barely hit 6am pacific time where AMD does things.

EDIT:
Ah and here we are:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?288285-***-AMD-Kaveri-Asus-A88X-PRO-preview****

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113360

If anyone gets one to try, I am told that the new A88X chipset cannot go higher than 106 bclk if you have AHCI on (which you should). Can anyone confirm this is true?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> That wasnt the message I was trying to convey.
> 
> I'm not trying to say small cores arent important for AMD. They are.
> 
> I'm saying with their current lithography disadvantage, it'll be rightfully hard for AMD to develop a small core that can compete with Intel in the same use case and power envelope (in a little core, power is everything.)
> 
> Hell, even today; CPU-wise, a ~4W TDP Z3770 Silvermont-based Atom is equivalent to a Jaguar-based A4-5000... Whose TDP is ~15W. Yes, there are GPU differences but they're not _that_ large when you bring it down to the same power envelope.
> 
> The only direct answer to Silvermont that AMD has is the A4-12x0 CPUs. Whose CPU power cannot even try to rival Silvermont. It's a tough situation and whose GPU can't really play many games besides the basic ones which Silvermont can do as well.


The a4-1250 part is about the same as baytrail in performance while the SDP is 8,5w vs 4W. Intel is on their 22nm node which for power efficiency is about a 26nm compared to glofo's mobile 28nm fab so a little more efficient. AMD will release Mullins this year futuring Puma cores which will yield ~30% cpu perf gain and some gains on the gpu Mullins will however also almost cut the SDP in half making it a 4,5w part.

Of course Intel will drop 14nm's baytrail derivative somewhere this year but AMD will fab their 14nm at Glofo in Q2 so the gap with Intel is smaller than it appears only a few months really. (the main problem is that Intel will have them ready while AMD may be looking at a late 2014 or even 2015 release also we do not know how good glofo 14nm xm is compared to Intel 14nm.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The a4-1250 part is about the same as baytrail in performance while the SDP is 8,5w vs 4W. Intel is on their 22nm node which for power efficiency is about a 26nm compared to glofo's mobile 28nm fab so a little more efficient. AMD will release Mullins this year futuring Puma cores which will yield ~30% cpu perf gain and some gains on the gpu Mullins will however also almost cut the SDP in half making it a 4,5w part.
> 
> Of course Intel will drop 14nm's baytrail derivative somewhere this year but AMD will fab their 14nm at Glofo in Q2 so the gap with Intel is smaller than it appears only a few months really. (the main problem is that Intel will have them ready while AMD may be looking at a late 2014 or even 2015 release also we do not know how good glofo 14nm xm is compared to Intel 14nm.


Benchmarks say otherwise.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Atom-Z3770-Tablet-SoC.101424.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A4-1250-Notebook-Processor.92891.0.html

I like Jaguar, I really do, but lithography is entirely relevant and Intel has the lead there. Density is irrelevant here; hell, if anything, for small cores, a lower density is preferable; but a more energy-efficient design is king. FinFET > planar here.


----------



## yrettete

It looks like bad news.

These chips simply are not very good.


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> It looks like bad news.
> 
> These chips simply are not very good.


in single thread. 5-7%

in mutli-threading up to 10-20%


----------



## yrettete

Better than an 8350 though ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Better than an 8350 though ?


no one expected it to be better than an 8350 as cpu performance


----------



## yrettete

So basically stick with your 8320 or 8350.

Let's hope Mantle is good.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So basically stick with your 8320 or 8350.
> 
> Let's hope Mantle is good.


There is a place for apus. Until they get better they won't take the high end.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So basically stick with your 8320 or 8350.
> 
> Let's hope Mantle is good.


Mantle is good. But the hope for Kaveri is when HSA-enabled applications arrive, they will more than make up for the lower core count for multi-threaded applications. The test for HSA will be this next year. If we see some some significant alpplications like Adobe Photoshop, Premioer and their Elements versions with HSA and some databases with HSA and games, then we
will have a critical mass to build irresistable momentum. If Adobe bull****s AMD about it's committment to HSA, then HSA will be dead in the water. Java apps from Oracle are absolutely essential also.


----------



## yrettete

I use none of those programs so won't be buying Steamroller.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> I use none of those programs so won't be buying Steamroller.


What apps do you use???


----------



## malpais

Piledriver is just as good as Steamroller at desktops TDPs so I wouldn't buy one with the sole intention of improving CPU performance. It will make a nice notebook chip but all of a sudden Steamrollers omission from desktop roadmaps makes a whole lot of sense. No point in investing substantial amounts of money in launching a new product when it's a marginal improvement at best.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Benchmarks say otherwise.
> 
> http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Atom-Z3770-Tablet-SoC.101424.0.html
> 
> http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A4-1250-Notebook-Processor.92891.0.html
> 
> I like Jaguar, I really do, but lithography is entirely relevant and Intel has the lead there. Density is irrelevant here; hell, if anything, for small cores, a lower density is preferable; but a more energy-efficient design is king. FinFET > planar here.


I don't know what is wrong with me as of late yesterday I mistakely claimed a processor I owned (i5-2300) was a i5-2400 and today I state that a dual core can take on quad core baytrail I of course meant the A6-1650.


----------



## yrettete

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> What apps do you use???


Just browsing the internet, Microsoft Word, virus scanner and casual gaming. and Windows media player.

In fact, a pentium 4 could meet my needs.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> I don't know what is wrong with me as of late yesterday I mistakely claimed a processor I owned (i5-2300) was a i5-2400 and today I state that a dual core can take on quad core baytrail I of course meant the A6-1650.


Oh it doesn't even need to be the A6-1650, the A4-5000 competes with the Z3770 competently.

However... You're comparing a tablet SoC with a SDP of ~4W and a TDP of ~7W to an APU with a full 15W TDP. Entirely different markets and aims.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Just browsing the internet, Microsoft Word, virus scanner and casual gaming. and Windows media player.
> 
> In fact, a pentium 4 could meet my needs.


Probably not, I doubt a P4 can properly do HD video.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Oh it doesn't even need to be the A6-1650, the A4-5000 competes with the Z3770 competently.
> 
> However... You're comparing a tablet SoC with a SDP of ~4W and a TDP of ~7W to an APU with a full 15W TDP. Entirely different markets and aims.


The A6-1450 is a 8W SDP chip and when the tablet is docked it can run higher clocks and then use up to 15W.
That is why I brought it up because Mullins with it's Puma cores will get a 30% increase over Jaguar cores while Mullins will also bring gains to the gpu side but more importantly cut the SDP in half.


----------



## yrettete

APUs will never replace graphics cards.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> APUs will never replace graphics cards.


Not necessarily. For end-users they already are. Why else are these the most popular GPUs, and in this order, on Steam:

Intel HD Graphics 4000
Intel HD Graphics 3000
Intel HD Graphics 2000
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660

I'm not lying. The first AMD card is number 11. I just really wish Intel would fix their godawful drivers. In the GPU industry that's just asking for a couple programmers, a week or so of work, and several pots of coffee.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The A6-1450 is a 8W SDP chip and when the tablet is docked it can run higher clocks and then use up to 15W.
> That is why I brought it up because Mullins with it's Puma cores will get a 30% increase over Jaguar cores while Mullins will also bring gains to the gpu side but more importantly cut the SDP in half.


True about the A6; however, that is still double the power consumption and heat output of Silvermont for similar performance.

I wouldn't be so optimistic about what Puma will do. Am I saying it won't happen? Absolutely not, but a 30% CPU increase, additional GPU increase, and half the SDP by just switching to 20nm (14nm?.) Yeah, I'll take my healthy ration of table salt. Yes, I know AMD said those things will happen; but may I remind you: AMD said those things will happen. I don't have to remind you of other things that AMD said will happen and didnt.

Also, don't forget that Airmont will be coming in a similar timeframe too. Intel is getting very serious about the small core race now. I doubt they'll just rehash what they have and hope for the best.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> APUs will never replace graphics cards.


They sure as hell will. Maybe not for all markets, but for gaming, they sure as hell are. And fast.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> I wouldn't be so optimistic about what Puma will do. Am I saying it won't happen? Absolutely not, but a 30% CPU increase, additional GPU increase, and half the SDP by just switching to 20nm (14nm?.) Yeah, I'll take my healthy ration of table salt. Yes, I know AMD said those things will happen; but may I remind you: AMD said those things will happen. I don't have to remind you of other things that AMD said will happen and didnt.


Puma is Jaguar+ and is on 28nm. Most of the increases come from 128-bit memory and clock turbo.

Leopard/Margay are the 20/14 nanometer cat cores.


----------



## yrettete

So Steamroller MIGHT be good if everyone just builds software and games the way AMD wants them to ?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> True about the A6; however, that is still double the power consumption and heat output of Silvermont for similar performance.
> 
> I wouldn't be so optimistic about what Puma will do. Am I saying it won't happen? Absolutely not, but a 30% CPU increase, additional GPU increase, and half the SDP by just switching to 20nm (14nm?.) Yeah, I'll take my healthy ration of table salt. Yes, I know AMD said those things will happen; but may I remind you: AMD said those things will happen. I don't have to remind you of other things that AMD said will happen and didnt.
> 
> Also, don't forget that Airmont will be coming in a similar timeframe too. Intel is getting very serious about the small core race now. I doubt they'll just rehash what they have and hope for the best.
> They sure as hell will. Maybe not for all markets, but for gaming, they sure as hell are. And fast.


Just repeating AMD's overhyped product slides and they saying they will achieve it by keeping the 28nm node. (yeah I know my mind was blown too)
This is how I felt:


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> True about the A6; however, that is still double the power consumption and heat output of Silvermont for similar performance.


What exactly are the products you get your consumption numbers from? When we are talking for so low envelopes even different screen can skew results.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> So Steamroller MIGHT be good if everyone just builds software and games the way AMD wants them to ?


For KV-A1, yes.
For KV-B0/CZ-A0, no.


----------



## yrettete

What do AMD have planned for after Excavator ?


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> What do AMD have planned for after Excavator ?


No one know but it will be an apu


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> No one know but it will be an apu


I don't know the core name but I'm pretty sure it goes Llano -> Trinity -> Richland -> Kaveri -> Carrizo (Excavator cores) -> Basilisk.


----------



## yawa

As I said I'm stuck with it either way. Here's a quick benchmark for me. I overclocked it to 4.6ghz right out of the box. 3Dmark still has trouble seeing it though.


----------



## Seronx

02h (Abu Dhabi) -> 03h (Warsaw) -> 40h-4Fh (the image)


----------



## Demonkev666

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 
> 02h (Abu Dhabi) -> 03h (Warsaw) -> 40h-4Fh (the image)


is that xbar is the crossbar switch ?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Demonkev666*
> 
> is that xbar is the crossbar switch ?


That is in the northbridge, yes.
--
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I thought the prices were confirmed already somewhat...
> 
> A10-7850K -> $199.99 (Converted to USD)
> A10 7700K -> $179.99 (Converted to USD)


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113359
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113360

$10 USD off....
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/299/4/3/rage_face_by_rober_raik-d4e0fxk.png

I trusted you Seronx, why you do this to us!

http://amzn.com/B00H7Z7YMI
$26 off at Amazon


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> That is in the northbridge, yes.
> --
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113359
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113360
> 
> $10 USD off....
> http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/299/4/3/rage_face_by_rober_raik-d4e0fxk.png
> 
> I trusted you Seronx, why you do this to us!
> 
> http://amzn.com/B00H7Z7YMI
> $26 off at Amazon


$189 for an APU? Comes with "free" BF4. Free? Yeah sure,AMD. You can pick up a 4670K for $220 at Newegg. I just find it frustrating at how AMD is going to charge that much for a APU that cannot realistically compete with Intel CPU's right now.
Awesome though,a 7850K underwater beats a FX 83xx after seeing this thread http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig/20 .


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

@NaroonGTX, where are your opinions and whatnot? Also Newegg, what are you doing. It's $174 on Amazon with BF4. That's low-end i5 territory, which is quite a risky move. Apparaently it only hyrbid crossfires with a 240 or 250, nothing else. Anybody confirm or deny?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Apparently, it only hybrid crossfires with a 240 or 250, nothing else. Anybody confirm or deny?


Kaveri can hybrid crossfire with R7 260, R7 260X, R9 290, and the R9 290X.

All XDMA units can crossfire with each other.


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri can hybrid crossfire with R7 260, R7 260X, R9 290, and the R9 290X.
> 
> All XDMA units can crossfire with each other.


The AMD rep in the other thread are saying that only R7 240 and R7 250 with DDR3 memory is supported for Dual Graphics.


----------



## EniGma1987

And Warsam actually works for AMD so his intel should be solid.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> The AMD rep in the other thread are saying that only R7 240 and R7 250 with DDR3 memory is supported for Dual Graphics.


If you want dual graphics now; R7 240 and R7 250 are good choices in both DDR3 and GDDR5 form.

While if you want a superior dual/tri/quad/octo amount of graphics later; any quantities of R7 240, R7 250, R7 260, R7 260X, R9 290, R9 290X can be used.

What must be satisfied;
16 GiB/s and possibly higher aggregate bandwidth.
A XDMA unit.
DirectX 12, OpenGL 5, Mantle.

Going into compute there is less barriers than the graphics end of things. You could in point have one Kaveri powering eight 290Xs while mining cryptocurrencies or other compute related tasks. The compute component can be done right now if you have the know how to exploit the XDMA units. It operates if I understand the XDMA units purpose much like coherent Hypertransport links.


----------



## CosmonautLaika

Seronx, please stop making things up.


----------



## wardoc22

If AMD's next processor requires a new socket and doesn't compete with intel's i7 at single threaded performance, I don't see anyone (as in us, the enthusiasts) in their right mind to get a whole new motherboard plus a whole new CPU without going intel in the process, excluding the fanboys.


----------



## EniGma1987

What about those of us who simply want to have fun pushing a whole new architecture to the limits?


----------



## wardoc22

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> What about those of us who wimply want to have fun pushing a whole new architecture to the limits?


You included also.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *wardoc22*
> 
> If AMD's next processor requires a new socket and doesn't compete with intel's i7 at single threaded performance, I don't see anyone (as in us, the enthusiasts) in their right mind to get a whole new motherboard plus a whole new CPU without going intel in the process, excluding the fanboys.


What if it costs half the money (cheaper than i5 even) ,matches it or comes close on fully multithreaded apps while being perfectly viable for 1080p-1440p gaming?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> What if it costs half the money (cheaper than i5 even) ,matches it or comes close on fully multithreaded apps while being perfectly viable for 1080p-1440p gaming?


Well enthusiasts aren't the APU market until HSA comes trough all the people here are like Boo Bulldozer derivatives BOO just because it lacks floating point performance but then again Excavator includes a 256 bit AVX2 fpu which may turn it into a monster in those kind of applications too. Jim Keller is back at AMD maybe he will influence what comes after Excavator so much that it gets a fully capable gpu based fp unit.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Well enthusiasts aren't the APU market until HSA comes trough all the people here are like Boo Bulldozer derivatives BOO just because it lacks floating point performance but then again Excavator includes a 256 bit AVX2 fpu which may turn it into a monster in those kind of applications too. Jim Keller is back at AMD maybe he will influence what comes after Excavator so much that it gets a fully capable gpu based fp unit.


Excavator with AVX2 is only a _little_ late considering Haswell has had it for awhile and also has more EUs for it... Not saying it won't help, just saying it'll be a few years behind the pioneer. Not sure how heavily it'll be in use though.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Excavator with AVX2 is only a _little_ late considering Haswell has had it for awhile and also has more EUs for it... Not saying it won't help, just saying it'll be a few years behind the pioneer. Not sure how heavily it'll be in use though.


You're absolutly right and yeah it is a Intel instruction set to begin with so they'll had it first








The thing is not that AVX2 instructions can be used but that it would require AMD to completely revise the FPU's in the Bulldozer architecture to fix how bad they are. (not really bad but undersized an numbered compared to K8 based and Core based products)


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Does anybody have any idea of what happened? We were supposed to see 10-20% gains for most stuff. Did AMD just re-release Piledriver but with a few minor tweaks and a better iGPU?


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Does anybody have any idea of what happened? We were supposed to see 10-20% gains for most stuff. Did AMD just re-release Piledriver but with a few minor tweaks and a better iGPU?


Wait for the HSA software to kick in.

inb4 120000% gains.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

In FPU, sure. In integer, no, not really.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> In FPU, sure. In integer, no, not really.


My "estimate" may have been a "bit" of an exaggeration


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Does anybody have any idea of what happened? We were supposed to see 10-20% gains for most stuff. Did AMD just re-release Piledriver but with a few minor tweaks and a better iGPU?


The 20% gain is there clock for clock but is negated by the lack of clock. Anyhow the gain is on mobile and low tdp the a8-7600 has a 600MHz gain over low power 2,5GHz


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

4.0/3.7x = 1, where x is the percent increase in IPCs. It comes out to about 8%

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> My "estimate" may have been a "bit" of an exaggeration


I did catch that. Bulldozer and its derivatives may not be great, but they aren't _that_ bad.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The 20% gain is there clock for clock but is negated by the lack of clock. Anyhow the gain is on mobile and low tdp the a8-7600 has a 600MHz gain over low power 2,5GHz


The average is much, much lower than 20% though. Sure there are situation where you'll see 20% but this is also the case with other small IPC jumps like PD, IB and haswell. All of those have been in the roughly 5-10% range and kaveri/steamroller would seem to fit into that as well.

Even AMD isn't saying it's 20% clock for clock gain. Even in their slides it's "up to 20%" meaning that 20% is pretty much the best case scenario.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> Even AMD isn't saying it's 20% clock for clock gain. Even in their slides it's "up to 20%" meaning that 20% is pretty much the best case scenario.




Mostly the first panel, but the other two are somewhat relevant? This is what comes to mind whenever I hear "up to N" anymore. What got improved and declined exactly? Integer calculations a up a bit, FPU if anything suffered a loss, and overclocking is more-or-less unaffected. That is all I have.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Does anybody have any idea of what happened? We were supposed to see 10-20% gains for most stuff. Did AMD just re-release Piledriver but with a few minor tweaks and a better iGPU?


http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/5156/43/amd-a10-7850k-kaveri-review-amds-new-apu-steamroller-vs-piledriver

_"Steamroller vs. Piledriver

To find out what the performance difference is between Steamroller and the previous generation Piledriver architecture, we ran a number of CPU benchmarks on the AMD A10-6800K (Richland with Piledriver cores) and AMD A10-7850K (Kaveri with Steamroller cores) clocked at 3.7 GHz and turbo disabled.

Here we can verify AMD's claim that the IPC has been increased by 20 percent in some cases. Both in x264 Pass 2 and in TrueCrypt we measured an increase of more than 22 percent. In Cinebench 11.5 we arrived at more than 11%. There are also a few instances where Steamroller is slower than the previous generation, for example in the Excel 2013 Monte Carlo benchmark.

Based on these six benchmarks we arrived at an average of more than 14 percent, but that includes a few best-case scenarios. AMD itself mentions about 10 percent, based on a much larger set of benchmarks. That 10 percent increase is largely undone by the lower clock frequency, as you saw in the benchmark results."_

Anyone having an explanation for the monte carlo regression? Could it be FPU intensive?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

That's not too bad, actually. I just wish they had a larger thermal envelope with which to work, but the architectural improvements are roughly around Nehalem to Sandy, right? Stock vs stock is disappointing, but people are reporting 5GHz on air to be fairly easy. That's where the improvements will be, ya know, _improvements_. Maybe they'll bin some chips and release the A11-9001k: 5GHz stock and this time not $1000.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> That's not too bad, actually. I just wish they had a larger thermal envelope with which to work, but the architectural improvements are roughly around Nehalem to Sandy, right? Stock vs stock is disappointing, but people are reporting 5GHz on air to be fairly easy. That's where the improvements will be, ya know, _improvements_. Maybe they'll bin some chips and release the A11-9001k: 5GHz stock and this time not $1000.


I think the fact of the matter is that with a lot of overhead relieved, a 2M/4T design would be good enough for most games, then just couple that with a great iGP that isn't dying of bandwidth like a certain iGP I know and you get a package that can medium (at the minimum) most games at 1080p for a low-ish price (way too high now... AMD please drop it to 160$ max. Thanks.) Place that in the right arena, get the programming initiative for it ablazing and you have a good option.

For budget gamers.

Plot twist: That's only a small segment of the overall PC market.

Still a good CPU though. If you look at it compared to a 6800K and pop it into it's most-used purpose (budget gaming, HTPC, etc.), then you get an APU that's made _well over_ a 20% overall increase.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

CPU gains aren't much, but you're right. GCN 1.0 -> GCN 1.1 and 6 GPU cores -> 8 GPU cores is something like a 35-40% boost. The only problem is bandwidth. C'mon, DDR4!


----------



## yawa

I've had it for two days.

Other than the wall I've hit trying to overclock passed 4.5Ghz, I can honestly say I'm pleasantly surprised on the x86 side of things.

While it doesn't show in the synthetic benchmarks on a few poorly threaded games I've definitely found a difference in GPU usage and minimum frames. Obviously this is limited as the future is HSA and properly threaded games, but suffice to say I did not expect to go from 64% GPU usage with minimum frames in the teens in GW2 on my FX8350 at 4.9 Ghz, to 89% GPU usage with minimum frames in the low twenties on Kaveri at 4.5Ghz.

So while it's a niche, at least for a game I play all the time, it's a welcome improvement.


----------



## Himo5

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> That's not too bad, actually. I just wish they had a larger thermal envelope with which to work, but the architectural improvements are roughly around Nehalem to Sandy, right? Stock vs stock is disappointing, but people are reporting 5GHz on air to be fairly easy. That's where the improvements will be, ya know, _improvements_. Maybe they'll bin some chips and release the A11-9001k: 5GHz stock and this time not $1000.


I don't know about any 5GHz overclocks. I'm having no luck even getting to 1GHz OC after my first attempt at idle OCs. The A88X PRO does not have a Smart Digi+ Key setting, like the F2A85-V PRO, and these IDLE overclocks were set from UEFI BIOS instead of AI Suite, so I may get further in the next session by trying to emulate the other two projects. But that complete lock out at 4700MHz looks pretty final to me.


Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!



Code:



Code:


+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|.A10-7850k VOLTAGE TABLE....(Ambient temp = 12°C).|
+------+-------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|ApuFrq|.IDLE[Post-Boot-Cpuz]....|.LOAD[Prime95.30.Minutes]**...........................|
|ApuMlt+---------+-----+----+----+----------+----+-----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| =100 |CPUVolts.|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.| CPUVolts | -/+ |.-^.| MaxVCore|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.|.Rpm..|
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+----+-----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
|A3700 | 1.13125 | -29 | -- | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
|B3800 | 1.15625 | -25 | 04 | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
|C3900 | 1.18125 | -21 | 04 | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
|D4000 | 1.21875 | -15 | 06 | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4100 | 1.25000 | -10 | 05 | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4200 | 1.28125 | -05 | 05 | 23 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4300 | 1.31875 | +01 | 06 | 24 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4400 | 1.35000 | +06 | 05 | 25 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4500 | 1.38750 | +12 | 06 | 25 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4600 | 1.43125 | +19 | 07 | 25 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
| 4700 |  XXXX   | +45 | 26+| 27 | ........ | ... | .. | ....... | ... | .. | .. | .... |
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+-----+----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
|.A10-6800k VOLTAGE TABLE...AD680KWOA44HL-GA1314SUS-9P87252E30330.(Ambient temp = 15°C).|
+------+-------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|ApuFrq|.IDLE[Post-Boot-Cpuz]**..|.LOAD[Prime95.30.Minutes]**...........................|
|ApuMlt+---------+-----+----+----+----------+----+-----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| =100 |CPUVolts.|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.| CPUVolts | -/+ |.-^.| MaxVCore|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.|.Rpm..|
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+-----+----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| 3800 | 1.08750 | -36 | -- | 27 | 1.112500 | -32 | -- | 1.15200 | -25 | -- | 34 | 1689 |
| 3900 | 1.11250 | -32 | 04 | 27 | 1.137500 | -28 | 04 | 1.18400 | -21 | 04 | 35 | 1700 |
| 4000 | 1.13750 | -28 | 04 | 27 | 1.156250 | -25 | 03 | 1.20000 | -18 | 03 | 36 | 1693 |
|A4100 | 1.15625 | -25 | 03 | 27 | 1.181250 | -21 | 04 | 1.22400 | -14 | 04 | 37 | 1698 |
|B4200 | 1.16875 | -23 | 02 | 27 | 1.212500 | -16 | 05 | 1.26400 | -07 | 07 | 38 | 1698 |
|C4300 | 1.18750 | -20 | 03 | 28 | 1.250000 | -10 | 06 | 1.30400 | -01 | 06 | 40 | 1701 |
|D4400 | 1.21875 | -14 | 06 | 28 | 1.287500 | -04 | 06 | 1.35200 | +07 | 08 | 41 | 1706 |
| 4500 | 1.24375 | -11 | 03 | 28 | 1.331250 | +03 | 07 | 1.40000 | +14 | 07 | 41 | 1713 |
| 4600 | 1.26875 | -07 | 04 | 27 | 1.356250 | +07 | 04 | 1.43200 | +20 | 06 | 45 | 1821 |
| 4700 | 1.30625 | -01 | 06 | 27 | 1.400000 | +14 | 07 | 1.48000 | +27 | 07 | 47 | 1869 |
| 4800 | 1.33125 | +03 | 04 | 28 | 1.450000 | +22 | 08 | 1.54400 | +38 | 11 | 53 | 2091 |
| 4900 | 1.35000 | +06 | 03 | 28 | 1.512500 | +32 | 10 | 1.62400 | +50 | 12 | 53 | 2057 |
| 5000 | 1.38750 | +12 | 06 | 28 | 1.593750 | +45 | 13 | 1.70400 | +63 | 13 | 52 | 2011 |
| 5100 | 1.41875 | +17 | 05 | 28 | -------- | --- | -- | ------- | --- | -- | -- | ---- |
| 5200 | 1.46875 | +25 | 08 | 29 | -------- | --- | -- | ------- | --- | -- | -- | ---- |
| 5300 | 1.52500 | +34 | 09 | 30 | -------- | --- | -- | ------- | --- | -- | -- | ---- |
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+-----+----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
|.A10-5800k VOLTAGE TABLE...AD580KWOA44HJ-GA1218PNT-9A78812E20588.(Ambient Temp = 18°C).|
+------+-------------------------+------------------------------------------------------+
|ApuFrq|.IDLE[Post-Boot-Cpuz]**..|.LOAD[Prime95.30.Minutes]**...........................|
|ApuMlt+---------+-----+----+----+----------+----+-----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| =100 |CPUVolts.|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.| CPUVolts | -/+ |.-^.| MaxVCore|.-/+ |.-^.|.°C.|.Rpm..|
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+-----+----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| 3800 | 1.13750 | -27 | -- | 33 | 1.193750 | -19 | -- | 1.21875 | -15 | -- | ## | #### |
| 3900 | 1.16875 | -23 | 04 | ## | 1.212500 | -16 | 05 | 1.25000 | -10 | 05 | ## | #### |
|A4000 | 1.18750 | -20 | 03 | ## | 1.237500 | -12 | 04 | 1.28125 | -05 | 05 | ## | #### |
|B4100 | 1.21250 | -16 | 04 | ## | 1.268750 | -07 | 05 | 1.32500 | +02 | 07 | ## | #### |
|C4200 | 1.24375 | -11 | 05 | ## | 1.300000 | -02 | 05 | 1.35625 | +07 | 07 | ## | #### |
| 4300 | 1.28750 | -04 | 07 | ## | 1.343750 | +05 | 07 | 1.39375 | +13 | 06 | ## | #### |
| 4400 | 1.30625 | -01 | 03 | ## | 1.375000 | +10 | 05 | 1.42500 | +18 | 05 | ## | #### |
| 4500 | 1.33750 | +04 | 05 | ## | 1.418750 | +17 | 07 | 1.47500 | +26 | 08 | ## | #### |
| 4600 | 1.36875 | +09 | 05 | ## | 1.462500 | +24 | 07 | 1.55000 | +38 | 12 | 50 | #### |
| 4700 | 1.41875 | +17 | 08 | ## | 1.525000 | +34 | 10 | 1.62500 | +50 | 12 | 49 | 2311 |
| 4800 | 1.46875 | +25 | 08 | ## | 1.600000 | +46 | 12 | 1.70000 | +62 | 12 | 48 | 2261 |
| 4900 | 1.50000 | +30 | 05 | ## | 1.687500 | +60 | 14 | 1.77500 | +74 | 14 | 53 | 2410 |
| 5000 | 1.56250 | +40 | 10 | ## | -------- | --- | -- | ------- | --- | -- | -- | ---- |
|------+---------+-----+----+----+----------+-----+----+---------+-----+----+----+------+
| KEY:..................................................................................|
| -/+.Voltage increments -94 to 0 to +94 = 0.725V to 1.3125V to 1.9V (2 x 94 x 0.00625V)|
| -^..Difference with preceding value...................................................|
| °C..Temperature in °Centigrade (Idle at 1.3125V = 25°C)...............................|
| #...data not collected................................................................|
| --..Prime95 failed to run 4 workers for 30 minutes in every case......................|
| XX..Overclock failed..................................................................|
| NON-DEFAULT BIOS SETTINGS.............................................................|
| AI Tweaker Menu:......................................................................|
| .... AI Overclock Tuner[Manual].......................................................|
| .... Memory Frequency[DDR3-1866MHz]...................................................|
| .... CPU Voltage[Manual Mode].........................................................|
| Advanced Menu>CPU Configuration:......................................................|
| .... AMD PowerNow function[Disabled]..................................................|
| .... CPB Mode[Disabled]...............................................................|
| .... C6 Mode[Disabled]................................................................|
| **..Smart DIGI+ Key setting in Asus AI Suite:.........................................|
| .....CPU Load Line Calibration [Extreme]..............................................|
| .....CPU Current Capability [140%]....................................................|
| .....CPU/NB Load Line Calibration [Extreme]...........................................|
| .....CPU/NB Current Capability [120%].................................................|
| .....CPU Power Phase Control [Extreme]................................................|
| .....CPU Voltage Frequency [Fixed Frequency Mode].....................................|
| .....Fixed Frequency Mode [310 KHz]...................................................|
| .....CPU Power Duty Control [TProbe]..................................................|
| .....CPU Power Thermal Control [135°C]................................................|
| .....DRAM Current capability [120%]...................................................|
| .....DRAM Fixed Frequency Mode [400 KHz]..............................................|
| .....DRAM Power Phase Control [Extreme]...............................................|
| INSTALLATION:.........................................................................|
| Motherboard: Asus F2A85-V PRO(A88X PRO - 7850k).......................................|
| PSU:Seasonic SS-760KM;................................................................|
| Ram:G.Skill TridentX 2400 2x8Gb(running at 1866MHz)...................................|
| Heatsink:Scythe Mugen 3b(4 - 7850K)...................................................|
| Fans:PWM(2xAP29-3000rpm GT in P/P;Silverstone FHP141 14cmx38mm Top input).............|
| O/S:MS W8 Pro(W7 U64 - 7850K).........................................................|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Put that code in a spoiler please. I had heard reports of 5GHz. I guess not? Too bad but 4.6GHz is not bad. Do you think it's temps, voltages, or VRMs or a crap chip?


----------



## Himo5

I can't say at the moment since what I'm doing is locked into a process where it's either get on or get side-tracked, but it feels like the same kind of wall as the A8 3870K.


----------



## EniGma1987

Well Im not saying this is the definite cause or anything since I dont own one of these new chips myself, but most FM2+ boards have inferior clock generation capabilities to get a good processor clock speed from, many things are also sharing that same PLL on the boards now too. Also the VRMs are not as nice as the bigger boards, and the bios is still quite infantile since it is such a different architecture. I would expect a bit higher over the coming months with better bios, but a lot of it will also have to do with the board.

And are you using bclk speed to do any of the overclocking? I am told that the A88X chipset cannot go over 106MHz BCLK without freaking out because of how the AHCI ties in


----------



## yawa

I remember the one review where they said they got 5.0 GHz booting. I think it was Hardware Canucks. Anyway, someone pointed out they had a different MOBO than everyone else doing reviews.

I might head back to MC and swap for that one if all else fails but I agree. The wall I've hit feels solid and I am not even remotely temperature limited ATM.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> I remember the one review where they said they got 5.0 GHz booting. I think it was Hardware Canucks. Anyway, someone pointed out they had a different MOBO than everyone else doing reviews.
> 
> I might head back to MC and swap for that one if all else fails but I agree. The wall I've hit feels solid and I am not even remotely temperature limited ATM.


It was hardware heaven. For some reason, AMD felt the need to ship mediocre motherboards in their review kits.

The lack of clocks on Kaveri is pretty much proof of why we have no large SR cores, 28nm at GloFo is not made for high clock speed and it strikes me as something AMD had ramrodded to fit their goals as opposed to going with something better, probably because it got cancelled.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Well Im not saying this is the definite cause or anything since I dont own one of these new chips myself, but most FM2+ boards have inferior clock generation capabilities to get a good processor clock speed from, many things are also sharing that same PLL on the boards now too. Also the VRMs are not as nice as the bigger boards, and the bios is still quite infantile since it is such a different architecture. I would expect a bit higher over the coming months with better bios, but a lot of it will also have to do with the board.
> 
> And are you using bclk speed to do any of the overclocking? I am told that the A88X chipset cannot go over 106MHz BCLK without freaking out because of how the AHCI ties in


I am sure you are right about the inferior features and bios on these boards, but that is only one part of the picture. Nobody wilget a 25% overclock out of Kaveri. It has everything to do with the process of these chips. My guess under water you may get to 4.5 or at best 4.6 GHZ. Don't look for more , you will be sorely disappointed.


----------



## Demonkev666

so does the SHP in 28nm SHP stand for "super high packed" or what ?

I honestly think it was power thing for the clocks as adding the decoder increased power along with the increase Instruction cache. temperatures don't seem to be the problem from the looks of it.


----------



## yawa

It ain't the temps. I'm barely touching 51C under Prime load when I was able to boot at 1.5 Volts. Under 1.45 and a 2000mhz Northbridge with 1.4250 on it I'm averaging a 47C Load temp. There is just a wall after 4.5. I have found no stable voltage after it.


----------



## Kuivamaa

http://www.techpowerup.com/196952/amd-readies-16-core-processors-with-full-uncore.html#comments

Single die 16core? Wouldn't mind a cut down version of this for desktop.


----------



## Alatar

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/196952/amd-readies-16-core-processors-with-full-uncore.html#comments
> 
> Single die 16core? Wouldn't mind a cut down version of this for desktop.


http://www.overclock.net/t/1459772/p3dn-potential-successors-fx-amd-shows-16-core-processor-scheme-in-programming-guide

has its own thread too.

do want.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Alatar*
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1459772/p3dn-potential-successors-fx-amd-shows-16-core-processor-scheme-in-programming-guide
> 
> has its own thread too.
> 
> do want.


mmmmmm yes please!


----------



## Himo5

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> It ain't the temps. I'm barely touching 51C under Prime load when I was able to boot at 1.5 Volts. Under 1.45 and a 2000mhz Northbridge with 1.4250 on it I'm averaging a 47C Load temp. There is just a wall after 4.5. I have found no stable voltage after it.


Well, implementing the Smart Digi+ Key from AI Suite II in UEFI BIOS has paid off. I now have an OC Profile which conforms to the settings in my previous projects and it has enabled me to get to 4800MHz at 1.4875V - just as the volt warning kicks in, so at least there is now a CPU-Z validation that can get the A10-7850K into the 1GHz Club.


Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!


----------



## Pholostan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The thing is not that AVX2 instructions can be used but that it would require AMD to completely revise the FPU's in the Bulldozer architecture to fix how bad they are.


Who cares about AVX2 when ordinary AVX is crippled/horribly bugged on Piledriver. You actually lose performance using AVX on Piledriver compared to SSE. AVX stores take a silly amount of time, so don't even bother. Hopefully they have fixed this bug in Steamroller, I'm kinda interested about that.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pholostan*
> 
> Who cares about AVX2 when ordinary AVX is crippled/horribly bugged on Piledriver. You actually lose performance using AVX on Piledriver compared to SSE. AVX stores take a silly amount of time, so don't even bother. Hopefully they have fixed this bug in Steamroller, I'm kinda interested about that.


Yeah ,I remember reading about it on Agner's blog (AVX on PD that is) and wondered if there is a benchmark around able to quantify it somehow.


----------



## Stay Puft

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/196952/amd-readies-16-core-processors-with-full-uncore.html#comments
> 
> Single die 16core? Wouldn't mind a cut down version of this for desktop.


Most of us want the 16 core for desktop use. 16 and 12 core desktop variants would be great.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Stay Puft*
> 
> Most of us want the 16 core for desktop use. 16 and 12 core desktop variants would be great.


For normal consumer use? Why?...

Hardly any consumer software takes advantage of 16 cores, power consumption at any decent clock would be monstrous along with heat, yields would be a nightmare... That's just barely the surface of why it doesn't belong in the consumer market...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> For normal consumer use? Why?...
> 
> Hardly any consumer software takes advantage of 16 cores, power consumption at any decent clock would be monstrous along with heat, yields would be a nightmare... That's just barely the surface of why it doesn't belong in the consumer market...


Having 16 threads or in this case cores is a blessing for multitasking I myself take slower 16 cores over 4 fast cores any day of the week. Like really I'll keep my current system around for a long long time. smooth


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Having 16 threads or in this case cores is a blessing for multitasking I myself take slower 16 cores over 4 fast cores any day of the week. Like really I'll keep my current system around for a long long time. smooth


But 16 cores all at like 1GHz? Probably not a great picture for intensive multitasking. Sure, TurboCore would take care of low threaded intensive tasks but again... Yields.

Not saying no one could use it, just saying it'd have the demographic of something like the FX-9590. A small one.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> But 16 cores all at like 1GHz? Probably not a great picture for intensive multitasking. Sure, TurboCore would take care of low threaded intensive tasks but again... Yields.
> 
> Not saying no one could use it, just saying it'd have the demographic of something like the FX-9590. A small one.


They could be running 3GHz just fine not joking I'm totally serious.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> They could be running 3GHz just fine not joking I'm totally serious.


How so? Assuming they all have load, of course.

And the TDP is reasonable, keeping in mind that this would be "mass produced", meaning not every chip can/will be cherry picked.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> But 16 cores all at like 1GHz? Probably not a great picture for intensive multitasking. Sure, TurboCore would take care of low threaded intensive tasks but again... Yields.
> 
> Not saying no one could use it, just saying it'd have the demographic of something like the FX-9590. A small one.


Heat and energy required go up with voltage so, while it wouldn't be optimum, it would take less energy to run a hypothetical 8M/16C chips at 2.5GHz than an 8350 at 4.0GHz just because of voltages needed. This is why server chips exist: they need threads, not jiggahertz, and if you have a need for that then you're better of with a Xeon or Opteron build.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Heat and energy required go up with voltage so, while it wouldn't be optimum, it would take less energy to run a hypothetical 8M/16C chips at 2.5GHz than an 8350 at 4.0GHz just because of voltages needed. This is why server chips exist: they need threads, not jiggahertz, and if you have a need for that then you're better of with a Xeon or Opteron build.


Voltage isn't the only determining factor. Load across 16C would use more than 8C at a higher clockrate.

If you think of it like: "Every clk, x amount of milliamperes @ x voltage is drawn" * 16. Higher voltage is needed for higher clocks on the same design, but saying adding cores makes no power difference doesn't make any logical sense. Wheres the power coming from to power those extra cores?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Voltage isn't the only determining factor. Load across 16C would use more than 8C at a higher clockrate.
> 
> If you think of it like: "Every clk, x amount of milliamperes @ x voltage is drawn" * 16. Higher voltage is needed for higher clocks on the same design, but saying adding cores makes no power difference doesn't make any logical sense. Wheres the power coming from to power those extra cores?


Never said less power when cores are the only variable. If we assume that 8 cores @ nHz take W Watts, then 16 cores should take 2W Watts assuming voltage is the same. If those 16 cores run at n/2Hz, then they should reuire W Watts. However, voltages can be lowered at those lower clocks, therefore the half-speed 16 core chip should use less power.


----------



## Kuivamaa

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-Opteron%206386%20SE%20-%20OS6386YETGGHK.html

Opteron 6386 SE (hexadecacore), 2.8Ghz base frequency, 140W TDP made on 32nm.A 3.3Ghz baseline Steamroller hexadecacore on 28nm,with the same TDP doesn't sound sci-fi at all,I'd say.


----------



## maarten12100

All this can be perfectly seen in today's server chips from both AMD and Intel. Btw Cynicalunicorn that new profile pic you have there made me almost mistake you for frickfrock


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-Opteron%206386%20SE%20-%20OS6386YETGGHK.html
> 
> Opteron 6386 SE (hexadecacore), 2.8Ghz base frequency, 140W TDP made on 32nm.A 3.3Ghz baseline Steamroller hexadecacore on 28nm,with the same TDP doesn't sound sci-fi at all,I'd say.


Not really, but doesn't bulk actually hinder clock, then again Kaveri was pumped for GPU space.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> But 16 cores all at like 1GHz? Probably not a great picture for intensive multitasking. Sure, TurboCore would take care of low threaded intensive tasks but again... Yields.
> 
> Not saying no one could use it, just saying it'd have the demographic of something like the FX-9590. A small one.[/quote
> 
> Where did you pull 1GHZ out of the hat from that is a stupid remark. Your talking about 3 GHZ or slightly higher. Please grow up and speak with your brain not your spleen.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> But 16 cores all at like 1GHz? Probably not a great picture for intensive multitasking. Sure, TurboCore would take care of low threaded intensive tasks but again... Yields.
> 
> Not saying no one could use it, just saying it'd have the demographic of something like the FX-9590. A small one.
> 
> 
> 
> Where did you pull 1GHZ out of the hat from that is a stupid remark. You*'*r*e* talking about 3 GHZ or slightly higher. Please grow up and speak with your brain not your spleen.
Click to expand...

Woah... Calm down man. I never said I was an expert, I'm just speculating with the little knowledge I have. I never said I was laying down the golden rule and I'm being totally hospitable to any counter views that may very well be more valid than mine.

And... my spleen? Really?


----------



## yrettete

When will games and software take advantage of HSA ?

never ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> When will games and software take advantage of HSA ?
> 
> never ?


Or today. Lots o' companies are jumping on the bandwagon and SoCs are becoming more and more common.


----------



## yrettete

and how much performance boost will this be ? or more FPS ?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> and how much performance boost will this be ? or more FPS ?


0 to infinity. Games tend not to use floating point calculations but so much (other than rendering graphics) which is why most stuff is GPU limited, assuming you have decently competent system of course.


----------



## sdlvx

Some of you are under-estimating things. A 20nm 8m/16c chip would be somewhere between 240mm^2 and 350mm^2. Vishera 4m/8c is already 315mm^2.

It's really not as bad. The TDP might blow but it's not something we couldn't deal with. If power consumption is really that bad, you could at least disable some modules when you're running old poorly threaded programs or run in one module per core mode.


----------



## SoloCamo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Some of you are under-estimating things. A 20nm 8m/16c chip would be somewhere between 240mm^2 and 350mm^2. Vishera 4m/8c is already 315mm^2.
> 
> It's really not as bad. The TDP might blow but it's not something we couldn't deal with. If power consumption is really that bad, you could at least disable some modules when you're running old poorly threaded programs or run in one module per core mode.


Im sure any of the many people on this board running a FX 8 core at 4.6ghz or above as well as a Intel Six core at those speeds (4.5+) could easily handle a 3.0-3.5ghz or so 16 core on the same cooling system.


----------



## SoloCamo

EDIT: double post, sorry


----------



## Stay Puft

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> For normal consumer use? Why?...
> 
> Hardly any consumer software takes advantage of 16 cores, power consumption at any decent clock would be monstrous along with heat, yields would be a nightmare... That's just barely the surface of why it doesn't belong in the consumer market...


Why not? A nice water setup could cool a 4Ghz+ 16 core monster especially since it'll be on 28nm


----------



## yawa

I'm going to start this by saying can Kaveri is weird. So weird in fact that I now know why AMD held back rock solid info for so long. Mostly because no one can really review this thing in it's current state. Hell, I've had Kaveri up and running since about 6 PM launch day and I still don't know what to make of it.

The part of me that wants to say with all the let down "sarcasm" one can muster this is disappointing, or that it's a at best a niche chip for broke System builders who happen to like gaming on Medium settings at 1080p and running limited Open CL benchmarks night and day, is tempered by the fact that we still know nothing about this chip even though a handful of us have it up and running.

You see even though no synthetic benchmark even begins to show the promised Single threaded performance gains, I can't not say it's there. One for my Guild Wars 2 story you are all sick of hearing about, but two, go look at my GPU benches. I am not bottlenecked or limited by any stretch of the imagination. Hell I used to have to put my FX8350 to 4.7 Ghz to get the GPU score I got in 3DMark11.

Long story short, even though Synthetics can't show it, for some baffling reason, it's there.

Multi-threaded performance is on the same side of the pillow, though increases are a bit more visible. I mean look at the Cinebench R15 where M3TAI and I matched modules and clock speed. Even though we got so close to eachother's performance that we actually tied in Single threaded performance (107) , I bafflingly beat his crippled FX8350 by 20 points in Multi.

In the Black Hole Benchmark we see another weird result as after trading blows with i3's in nearly everything else, my 4.5Ghz Kaveri is suddenly within under 1000 points of an i5 3750K.

Look, what I'm trying to get at here is this. Even though it is in our hands, we still don't know what the hell is going on with this thing. Like at all. AMD warned us that so much of what makes this chip great is still being developed, and tried their damnedest to get us to stop thinking in the realm of traditional x86 benches and progression by blinding us with the powerful onboard graphics, but for a lot of people, it wasn't enough.

I daresay even if HSA rolls out as widely as AMD hopes, and the thing starts beating i5's and i7's in a ton of tasks and benches most people will still think "It's just an APU.",

Even if tomorrow a patch comes out that works for nearly every modern game that lets this thing combine shader units with an r9 290 and nearly every game starts using the igpu for tasks that were once CPU limited, most people will still think "It's just an APU."

This is simply put, a frustrating launch. I still know next to nothing about the APU currently powering my PC, and the truth is, I likely won't know much more for up to a year from now.

The potential is there however. It really is. You can see flashes of it when you game, or benchmark, or just tinker around with it. Hell my boot time is significantly faster at the moment even though I'm using roughly the same setup I had with my FX8350.

Again, baffiling.

I will play my part for what it's worth as I've chosen my side, my socket, and my CPU for the next year at least. Here's hoping one year from today I'll be able to tell you all about Kaveri. All it's ticks and intricacies, whether it's to recommend or ward you away from I don't care. I just want to know what this mysterious 95 Watt APU is all about.

After all, bad or good, not knowing is the worst.

Later.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Some of you are under-estimating things. A 20nm 8m/16c chip would be somewhere between 240mm^2 and 350mm^2. Vishera 4m/8c is already 315mm^2.


360 - 380 mm². Also, it would be on 28-nm from GlobalFoundries. Possibly, the same process as Kaveri which is 28-nm SHP.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The TDP might blow but it's not something we couldn't deal with. If power consumption is really that bad, you could at least disable some modules when you're running old poorly threaded programs or run in one module per core mode.


Power consumption is up to two 8-pin EPS; one for LP servers and two for gamers/enthusiasts. TDP should be less than 150 watts while overclocking beyond 400 watts.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> The part of me that wants to say with all the let down "sarcasm" one can muster this is disappointing, or that it's a at best a niche chip for broke System builders who happen to like gaming on Medium settings at 1080p and running limited Open CL benchmarks night and day, is tempered by the fact that we still know nothing about this chip even though a handful of us have it up and running.


They are doing an "OR-B2 then OR-C0" to reduce costs by swindling.

Bait and switch. People will buy KV-A1 thinking that they are getting a complete part. That isn't the case, KV-B0 is the complete part and is coming out soon.


----------



## yawa

Sorry Seronx. I have no idea what you mean by that.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Sorry Seronx. I have no idea what you mean by that.


Engineering Samples;
KV-A0
KV-A1

Production Samples;
KV-B0

The engineering parts are partially broken while KV-B0 isn't.

KV-A1 is the equivalent of FX-8150/FX-8120/FX-6100/FX-4100/etc. GF100. Agena B2. so on.
KV-B0 is the equivalent of FX-8350/FX-8320/FX-6300/FX-4300/etc. GF110. Agena B3. so on.

It is disappointing because it isn't a complete product.


----------



## yawa

So wait a few months and use my warranty to get another one down the road?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> So wait a few months and use my warranty to get another one down the road?


Nope, your product is complete by AMD. Even though, they will be releasing the same part with the parts disabled turned on.

If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is not Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch between April and September.
If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch in January like this year.

Kaveri revision A is a horizontal upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Horizontal = Efficiency, basically going from a 480/570 GTX to a R7 260X)
Kaveri revision B is a vertical upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Vertical = Performance, basically going from a 580 GTX to a 780 Ti GTX)


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Nope, your product is complete by AMD. Even though, they will be releasing the same part with the parts disabled turned on.
> 
> If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is not Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch between April and September.
> If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch in January like this year.
> 
> Kaveri revision A is a horizontal upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Horizontal = Efficiency, basically going from a 480/570 GTX to a R7 260X)
> Kaveri revision B is a vertical upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Vertical = Performance, basically going from a 580 GTX to a 780 Ti GTX)


Wait so Piledriver is just Bulldozer with parts enabled?! What kind of engineer sorcery is this!


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Wait so Piledriver is just Bulldozer with parts enabled?! What kind of engineer sorcery is this!


I don't think so..

but 8350 is a 9570 with res clock mesh turned off









trinity > richland


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

So early adopters got screwed?

Yawa, I read your wall of text but editing it is a pain on my phone so pretend there's a quote here:

*quote*

Anyway, yes. This has been odd, to say the least. Maybe all the review sites got paid off by Intel? I myself wasn't a huge fan of replacing CPUs with APUs, but DuckieHo and I talked about it a bit, and I now accept our new dual-processor overlords. HSA is icing on the cake, but I wish these things could have some L3 cache.


----------



## X-Alt

Bulldozer had caching issues, Piledriver (B3) IIRC was the fix but already in the loop of development by the time FX8120 was released..


----------



## Heavy MG

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Nope, your product is complete by AMD. Even though, they will be releasing the same part with the parts disabled turned on.
> 
> If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is not Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch between April and September.
> If Kaveri/Berlin revision B, is Carrizo/Torronto, then it will launch in January like this year.
> 
> Kaveri revision A is a horizontal upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Horizontal = Efficiency, basically going from a 480/570 GTX to a R7 260X)
> Kaveri revision B is a vertical upgrade to Trinity and Richland. (Vertical = Performance, basically going from a 580 GTX to a 780 Ti GTX)


So no new part number? ie A10 7870K? That makes a really frustrating chip lottery for anyone who wants all the stuff turned on later.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Some of you are under-estimating things. A 20nm 8m/16c chip would be somewhere between 240mm^2 and 350mm^2. Vishera 4m/8c is already 315mm^2.
> 
> 
> 
> 360 - 380 mm². Also, it would be on 28-nm from GlobalFoundries. Possibly, the same process as Kaveri which is 28-nm SHP.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> The TDP might blow but it's not something we couldn't deal with. If power consumption is really that bad, you could at least disable some modules when you're running old poorly threaded programs or run in one module per core mode.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Power consumption is up to two 8-pin EPS; one for LP servers and two for gamers/enthusiasts. TDP should be less than 150 watts while overclocking beyond 400 watts.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> The part of me that wants to say with all the let down "sarcasm" one can muster this is disappointing, or that it's a at best a niche chip for broke System builders who happen to like gaming on Medium settings at 1080p and running limited Open CL benchmarks night and day, is tempered by the fact that we still know nothing about this chip even though a handful of us have it up and running.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> They are doing an "OR-B2 then OR-C0" to reduce costs by swindling.
> 
> Bait and switch. People will buy KV-A1 thinking that they are getting a complete part. That isn't the case, KV-B0 is the complete part and is coming out soon.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that's disappointing. I was really hoping for more SOI. I don't trust bulk at all for hardcore overclocking, and I really like the fact that the FX seems impossible to kill.

I don't know where you get your die size from though. I used the really optimistic formula (newNode^2 / oldNode^2) * oldDieSize and came up with 241mm^2 for a 28nm Piledriver with 4m/8c. I just doubled it and came to 480mm^2. Even then, Kaveri is a 245mm^2 die. If we assume half of that is GPU, that leaves us with 122.5mm^2 for 2 modules. So for 8 modules, we end up with 490mm^2.

Regardless, that's utterly ridiculous. I don't see AMD launching a nearly 500mm^2 chip for $400. Unless they found a customer who would be willing to buy a ton of those chips and AMD just wants to burn through their wafer agreement and get it over with.

20nm makes a lot more sense for 8m/16c but 28nm is still too big. You're reaching Itanic die sizes by then, and Haswell-E is going to have a huge die size advantage over AMD.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> So early adopters got screwed?
> 
> Yawa, I read your wall of text but editing it is a pain on my phone so pretend there's a quote here:
> 
> *quote*
> 
> Anyway, yes. This has been odd, to say the least. Maybe all the review sites got paid off by Intel? I myself wasn't a huge fan of replacing CPUs with APUs, but DuckieHo and I talked about it a bit, and I now accept our new dual-processor overlords. HSA is icing on the cake, but I wish these things could have some L3 cache.


Maybe AMD pushed some early revision chips out in limited quantities to live up to their promise of Q4 2013 Kaveri release date? It seems feasible, but it's a really dirty move that I wouldn't expect from AMD. Specially since I just made that other post in the industry news section suggesting AMD gets a pass with (some) enthusiasts because they're more inept than evil.

If you are really enthusiastic about AMD, you should know by now that Windows is not the ideal ecosystem to get good performance out of AMD CPUs. I don't think I would ever fathom not running Gentoo on any AMD system I own, simply for the fact that the speed advantage is massive when AMD CPUs are getting code that it actually likes.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Hmm, that's disappointing. I was really hoping for more SOI. I don't trust bulk at all for hardcore overclocking, and I really like the fact that the FX seems impossible to kill.
> 
> I don't know where you get your die size from though. I used the really optimistic formula (newNode^2 / oldNode^2) * oldDieSize and came up with 241mm^2 for a 28nm Piledriver with 4m/8c. I just doubled it and came to 480mm^2. Even then, Kaveri is a 245mm^2 die. If we assume half of that is GPU, that leaves us with 122.5mm^2 for 2 modules. So for 8 modules, we end up with 490mm^2.


GPU is 47%, just for accuracy.

Either way, what I'm worrying about with these numbers is: Are these "47%" numbers coming from the schematic transistors or the actual physical transistor count?


----------



## Kuivamaa

And kaveri has no L3 either. It does seem improbable to make those on 28nm unless there is a huge customer server-side and enthusiasts get harvested reject dies.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Wait so Piledriver is just Bulldozer with parts enabled?! What kind of engineer sorcery is this!


OR-B2 -> OR-C0, they are the same die with the modules having parts enabled.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *X-Alt*
> 
> Bulldozer had caching issues, Piledriver (B3) IIRC was the fix but already in the loop of development by the time FX8120 was released..


p2 the first mmx pipe was disabled, idiv unit was disabled, the 2nd double macro-op decoder could only do single macro-ops.

Bulldozer OR-B2 -> Piledriver OR-C0
P0, P1, P3 -> P0, P1, P2, P3
ALU/Bra/Mul, ALU/Count -> ALU/Bra/Mul, ALU/Count/Div
2-1-1, 1-1-1-1 -> 2-2, 2-1-1, 1-1-1-1
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Heavy MG*
> 
> So no new part number? ie A10 7870K? That makes a really frustrating chip lottery for anyone who wants all the stuff turned on later.


If it follows OR-B2 -> OR-C0, it will be A10-8850K, etc. If it doesn't it will probably have an indicator like A10-7855K or so on.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Hmm, that's disappointing. I was really hoping for more SOI. I don't trust bulk at all for hardcore overclocking, and I really like the fact that the FX seems impossible to kill.


SHP is the indicator of SOI, so somehow 28nm SHP is SOI. I think that Kaveri is making use of hybrid SOI with a dual metal gate stack. V-structure metal stack with FD-SOI for CPU and Straight-structure metal stack with Bulk for GPU.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I don't know where you get your die size from though. I used the really optimistic formula (newNode^2 / oldNode^2) * oldDieSize and came up with 241mm^2 for a 28nm Piledriver with 4m/8c. I just doubled it and came to 480mm^2. Even then, Kaveri is a 245mm^2 die. If we assume half of that is GPU, that leaves us with 122.5mm^2 for 2 modules. So for 8 modules, we end up with 490mm^2.


(24.5 / 32.5)²
315 * 2 => 630 * (24.5 ÷ 32.5)² => ~358.01893491124260355029585798817 mm²
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Are these "47%" numbers coming from the schematic transistors or the actual physical transistor count?


Size on the die is 47% of the GPU, with uncore and CPU taking 53%.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> OR-B2 -> OR-C0, they are the same die with the modules having parts enabled.
> 
> 315 * 2 => 630 * (24.5 ÷ 32.5)² => ~358.01893491124260355029585798817 mm²


Wow that is really bad

Also why do you use an "smaller than" and an "around" sign for a number with so many significant figures that is almost as bad as what AMD did with Bulldozer to Piledriver as you mentioned (It is funny how Americans use a dot/point rather than a comma and when they want to write down a bigger number they start using commas)


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> (It is funny how how the Dutch use a comma rather than a dot/point and when they want to write down a bigger number they start using dots/points)


Fixed!







That's why you use spaces instead and the decimal is represented equally well by a comma or period. 12,345 is confusing, but 12 345 is not and by using spaces any ambiguity between commas and periods is solved.

So basically being an AMD early adopter sucks? I'll remember that from now on.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Fixed!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's why you use spaces instead and the decimal is represented equally well by a comma or period. 12,345 is confusing, but 12 345 is not and by using spaces any ambiguity between commas and periods is solved.
> 
> So basically being an AMD early adopter sucks? I'll remember that from now on.


It is awfully confusing to us working with both European and American -books/programs. Also that space makes most of us think that there is a * between it since that is how we would write a formula and fill it in with variables.


----------



## toshevopc

https://www.change.org/petitions/advanced-micro-devices-amd-amd-release-fx-processor-with-steamroller-microarchitecture check this out !







maybe we can achieve something with this


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *toshevopc*
> 
> https://www.change.org/petitions/advanced-micro-devices-amd-amd-release-fx-processor-with-steamroller-microarchitecture check this out !
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> maybe we can achieve something with this


AMD is a company in bussines to make profit there won't be an FX unless there is a Steamroller Opteron and as AMD is moving to micro servers Jim Keller's promise might only yield big cores in future APU's as there will be no need for only cpu grunt by then.

Even when you have the building blocks IP designated Steamroller an FX design would take a L3 area and a bigger than 250mm^2 die it would require a total rebuild which would cost a lot. It is not like they can leverage IP and make an enormous profit of it now also they would need to release a higher end platform as FM2+ isn't ready for such grunt by design.

In short that petition won't change a thing.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Fixed!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's why you use spaces instead and the decimal is represented equally well by a comma or period. 12,345 is confusing, but 12 345 is not and by using spaces any ambiguity between commas and periods is solved.
> 
> So basically being an AMD early adopter sucks? I'll remember that from now on.


Being an early adopter in general sucks. I can't name too many people who were actually satisfied with first-Gen Atoms, but I know plenty of folk who lub their Bay Trails.


----------



## toshevopc

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> AMD is a company in bussines to make profit there won't be an FX unless there is a Steamroller Opteron and as AMD is moving to micro servers Jim Keller's promise might only yield big cores in future APU's as there will be no need for only cpu grunt by then.
> 
> Even when you have the building blocks IP designated Steamroller an FX design would take a L3 area and a bigger than 250mm^2 die it would require a total rebuild which would cost a lot. It is not like they can leverage IP and make an enormous profit of it now also they would need to release a higher end platform as FM2+ isn't ready for such grunt by design.
> 
> In short that petition won't change a thing.


Why not to sign the petition? Maybe you are right it won't change a thing but there is a chance to change, so i think that its better to sign the petition .







Go on spread it


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

You sir, are far to hopeful to survive in the business world. Nothing personal, but AMD's market share for servers is under 5%, and that's being generous. Steamroller Opterons with eight modules aren't coming to the server market and therefore definitely not the consumer market. FX chips are nothing more than cut-down Opterons, and AMD just doesn't have the money to risk it with Steamroller especially since only 33% of their desktop consumer chips are FX based. Sure, that sounds like a lot, but all of their laptop chips, i.e. a much bigger market, are APUs.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> You sir, are far to hopeful to survive in the business world. Nothing personal, but AMD's market share for servers is under 5%, and that's being generous. Steamroller Opterons with eight modules aren't coming to the server market and therefore definitely not the consumer market. FX chips are nothing more than cut-down Opterons, and AMD just doesn't have the money to risk it with Steamroller especially since only 33% of their desktop consumer chips are FX based. Sure, that sounds like a lot, but all of their laptop chips, i.e. a much bigger market, are APUs.


It totally goes against what AMD is doing. AMD is trying to push this idea of the HSA enable openCL power house...

its great in theory but we are waiting for application support, if you are in photo editing this is for you. as adobe is right in the mix and thick of this.

but AMD needs to see where these APUs go before investing more capital in higher end models.

if HSA flops, then we might be able to see steamroller on am3+, key word ABLE. even this is not very likely.

AMD wants this HSA thing to take off, they have the know how to make a KILLER big are openCL beast.

i see excavator being AMD return to crown in at least one sector or another. if hsa takes off i wouldn't be surprised to see 8 module dual igpu server chips just creaming EVERYTHING as a work horse.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

They'd have to modify Steamroller. There were a few minor changes that would make it incompatible, e.g. an integrated northbridge (at least I'm pretty sure). PCIe 3.0 wouldn't be too much of an issue though.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> They'd have to modify Steamroller. There were a few minor changes that would make it incompatible, e.g. an integrated northbridge (at least I'm pretty sure). PCIe 3.0 wouldn't be too much of an issue though.


sorry forgot to mention that i'm assume AMD is gunna drop north bridge chip sets like the 990fx, and move to the A style chipset with NB integrated.

if AMD has their way, everything is gunna have a igpu that will be tasked to compute tasks


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> They'd have to modify Steamroller. There were a few minor changes that would make it incompatible, e.g. an integrated northbridge (at least I'm pretty sure). PCIe 3.0 wouldn't be too much of an issue though.


I though integrated nb was on all apus as is..


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I though integrated nb was on all apus as is..


Yes. Which is why no APUs are on AM3+.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Yes. Which is why no APUs are on AM3+.


which leads to my point of there are PD APUs so SR FX is not completely out of the question. It only depends on what there business stance is and how they want to move forward with what they have, they being AMD


----------



## obiwantoby

If one were getting a brand new CPU / Motherboard, isn't FM2+ for AMD the better future solution? A system for purely gaming, it looks like the 8350 still has some advantages here.

Would the 7850k be so much of a bottleneck for dedicated GPUs?


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Why would it be? I'm curious why people think APUs are crap CPUs. Steamroller is better than Piledriver, and Vishera, Richland, and Trinity all use those cores. Sure, it'd be a good choice. If you don't want hybrid crossfire, something that doesn't even have drivers out yet, or are using Nvidia, then just wait for the Athlons with a disabled iGPU to be released. Alternatively, get an unlocked chip with fewer GPU cores. I don't want to be an early adopter for HSA and get screwed. I'm pretty sure hypertransport was improved so multi-GPU systems should suffer much.


----------



## obiwantoby

AMD publicly demonstrated a 290x + APU. I do find it odd they have two lines of competing processors. FX series has more 'cores' which may not matter too much for many games, but I do wonder if things like Planetary Annihilation or something similar would be affected by the lack of additional modules.

Intel has gone crazy and tiered their system into process that are a bit too high. I'd like to keep suggesting and supporting AMD, but it is hard to determine what line to go with. FM2+ seems to be the future.

Crossfire 2 270x cards with an FM2+ 7850k. Lack of multi slot PCIe out there, ASUS A88X-PRO FM2+ seems to be the only choice. AM3+ does not have native PCIe 3.0 support at all.


----------



## SoloCamo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *obiwantoby*
> 
> If one were getting a brand new CPU / Motherboard, isn't FM2+ for AMD the better future solution? A system for purely gaming, it looks like the 8350 still has some advantages here.
> 
> Would the 7850k be so much of a bottleneck for dedicated GPUs?


A system for not only gaming, but anything needing a strong cpu would be in the 8350's favor. Overall, even with more per core performance, the 7850k cannot touch an 8350 for general computing and the wide array of applications out there. 8350 can clock higher and also has an l3 cache, even if the l3 cache isn't exactly perfect on it, it certainly helps.


----------



## heroxoot

So is there a reason APU have no L3? Is it a space thing? I feel they would perform better if they had L3.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

Yup, and FX L3 had lots of latency issues anyway so it did not offer much.


----------



## yawa

Space I would assume.

Also considering the plan for these chips has always been that when HSA becomes capable in them the CPU is supposed to start offloading to the iGPU most of the Physics and Floating point stuff. So I would imagine even if they could have fit it, when that did start to happen the L3 Cache would likely have become redundant and kind of a waste of space.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Yup, and FX L3 had lots of latency issues anyway so it did not offer much.


Yes but with HSA this would be improved no? Plus they could have improved L3 latency easily IMO.


----------



## CynicalUnicorn

I dunno and not necessarily.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Yes but with HSA this would be improved no? Plus they could have improved L3 latency easily IMO.


It's space issues.

And no, not really. Consumer programs like games are massive cache polluters, so an L3 wouldn't really improve performance so much that it'd be worth adding a MASSIVE amount of die space.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Yes but with HSA this would be improved no? Plus they could have improved L3 latency easily IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> It's space issues.
> 
> And no, not really. Consumer programs like games are massive cache polluters, so an L3 wouldn't really improve performance so much that it'd be worth adding a MASSIVE amount of die space.
Click to expand...

Oh, because back when I built my first real gaming rig I was on an Athlon II x4, and when I switched to a Phenom II of similar clock, the performance difference was huge. I know the phenom had some better performance period, but I felt the L3 I now had made a difference.


----------



## obiwantoby

I haven't even seen much reviews with the A10 chip and dedicated GPUs or crossfire setups. I do wonder how much slower this system is from the 8350 or i5.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *obiwantoby*
> 
> I haven't even seen much reviews with the A10 chip and dedicated GPUs or crossfire setups. I do wonder how much slower this system is from the 8350 or i5.


That would depend on what test is getting ran.. If its games may not see that much of a difference.


----------



## yawa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Oh, because back when I built my first real gaming rig I was on an Athlon II x4, and when I switched to a Phenom II of similar clock, the performance difference was huge. I know the phenom had some better performance period, but I felt the L3 I now had made a difference.


I can understand that but this is apple's to orange's Essentially what AMD is trying to do here with the hardware and their campaign to get the developers on board is replace the FP on standard x86 processors with an iGPU. Essentially the reason AMD kept referring to Kaveri as a 12 Core APU is not (just) for some fancy marketing gimmicks, it is essentially true. 4 x86 Cores for integer performance and 8 GCN Cores for FP and Physics. Basically with no extra effort on the user's part, the chip will just assign the iGPU a task that it is better at than the x86 Cores. So if everything comes out the way AMD hopes, a simplified example would be if you're running 3D Mark 11, when you get to the physics test, the x86 Cores will tell the iGPU cores to take over and therefore result in a much better physics score than what you would have gotten using the standard integer cores.

Even though some still call it a pipe dream (mostly because it has been delay after delay with HSA on the software and hardware side) we basically have the first processor out now that is fully capable of this. The software now just has to catch up. If AMD has it's way, it could potentially change the way we look at APU's, and maybe even computing in general, forever.


----------



## obiwantoby

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> That would depend on what test is getting ran.. If its games may not see that much of a difference.


Particularly in multi GPU setups that tend to be more CPU dependent , I think it would be an interesting benchmark. Especially since Kaveri is the only AMD PCIe 3.0 platform. The integrated NB might help too, but it is hard to substantiate anything.


----------



## yawa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *obiwantoby*
> 
> I haven't even seen much reviews with the A10 chip and dedicated GPUs or crossfire setups. I do wonder how much slower this system is from the 8350 or i5.


It's all over the place right now mostly because the software (as I stated in the post on the other page in response to you) is incomplete.

That being said I am certainly not bottlenecked and am running a GTX 670. I have also seen some decent performance gains in single threaded, poorly coded, older games and a few MMO's. GW2 for example is one of them.

I have a ton of benches and anecdotes in my thread here if you want to check some out with a discreet GPU.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So is there a reason APU have no L3? Is it a space thing? I feel they would perform better if they had L3.


as has been said quite a few times in this thread, the 8MB of L3 cache in the FX processors takes up nearly half the processor die space. If L3 was added it would replace the entire iGPU portion and take up just as much space. It is not really possible to have L3 and an iGPU even at much lower process nodes because it simply takes up so much space. A far better design is what Intel is doing with adding a 2nd die of eDRAM inside the processor since it doesnt destroy your CPU yields, has TONS more MB size, and has almost as good of bandwidth as L3 cache tends to have. Although Intel is using it more as an L4 cache, but AMD could use it as a replacement to the L3.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *CynicalUnicorn*
> 
> Yup, and FX L3 had lots of latency issues anyway so it did not offer much.


The L3 latency wasnt really terrible, the latency problem in cache is the l1 write-through design that caused the biggest problem. L3 is useful because it enabled modules to communicate with each other easier when processing a task without making a trip to RAM.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Oh, because back when I built my first real gaming rig I was on an Athlon II x4, and when I switched to a Phenom II of similar clock, the performance difference was huge. I know the phenom had some better performance period, but I felt the L3 I now had made a difference.


The L3 cache in the older designs did add a good bit of performance. But FX is an entirely different architecture design and does not perform the same. The L3 does add around 10% better performance, which actually is a pretty good bit. However in server workloads the gains from L3 are even higher than in desktop workloads.


----------



## sdlvx

I made this, but just for fun. Inspired by Enignma's post.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I made this, but just for fun. Inspired by Enignma's post.


Oh... Well now...
I know there is a lot more to it than everyone in this thread knows, but what are the chances of that with EX? It will be on a smaller size than PD....


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> It's all over the place right now mostly because the software (as I stated in the post on the other page in response to you) is incomplete.
> 
> That being said I am certainly not bottlenecked and am running a GTX 670. I have also seen some decent performance gains in single threaded, poorly coded, older games and a few MMO's. GW2 for example is one of them.
> 
> I have a ton of benches and anecdotes in my thread here if you want to check some out with a discreet GPU.
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig


I am amazed at the fact that everyone seems to skip over the 45W performance. Everyone spends so much time arguing over the 95W desktop performance when in fact most of us would not gain anything going from what we have to a Kaveri desktop. But the performance of the Kaveri at 45W shows a lot of promise in laptops.


----------



## malpais

AMD seem to have done some very creative things with "TDP".



There also seems to be a difference between 45W Richland and 45W Kaveri.



After seeing how well 45W Kaveri performed I had alot of hope that mobile products would blow mobile Richland away but now I'm a little worried. Unless they apply the same loose TDP definition there too of course :\

edit: Looking at that Tom's graph it seems the 7850k may have been restricted to 65W, possibly because of the configurable TDP option in the motherboard. I am wondering if the 45W Kaveri results are like they are because the configurable TDP was set to 65W. Very strange.


----------



## obiwantoby

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> It's all over the place right now mostly because the software (as I stated in the post on the other page in response to you) is incomplete.
> 
> That being said I am certainly not bottlenecked and am running a GTX 670. I have also seen some decent performance gains in single threaded, poorly coded, older games and a few MMO's. GW2 for example is one of them.
> 
> I have a ton of benches and anecdotes in my thread here if you want to check some out with a discreet GPU.
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig


I guess from what I see it does seem like it isn't bottlenecking. It is really hard to tell though. These cores are stronger, they are more power efficient, they support more advanced features (PCIe 3.0), but are less numerous and overall performant than their older FX counterpart.


----------



## yawa

The performance I have experienced has certainly encouraged me in the pursuit of this new build. At the moment I would not hesitate to pair this APU with an R9 290. I am only encouraged by the fact that Mantle and future drivers to enable the iGPU to take over Physics and FP performance in benches and games, and proper HSA implementation is forthcoming.

That performance will be in my opinion, the most interesting to asses and gauge. Though it is priced like one, try to remember that this is the first APU meant for high end performance. I certainly still have faith once proper implementation is prominent that kind of performance will come to pass.


----------



## obiwantoby

Indeed. You have a nice OC there though.


----------



## yawa

I Suppose so. But if this was Richland at 4.9 Ghz and I was trying to pair this with a 290X I would be branded a heretic and crazyface around here for such audacity.

Hell I still might. But either way it's going to be interesting.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *malpais*
> 
> AMD seem to have done some very creative things with "TDP".
> 
> 
> 
> There also seems to be a difference between 45W Richland and 45W Kaveri.
> 
> 
> 
> After seeing how well 45W Kaveri performed I had alot of hope that mobile products would blow mobile Richland away but now I'm a little worried. Unless they apply the same loose TDP definition there too of course :\
> 
> edit: Looking at that Tom's graph it seems the 7850k may have been restricted to 65W, possibly because of the configurable TDP option in the motherboard. I am wondering if the 45W Kaveri results are like they are because the configurable TDP was set to 65W. Very strange.


AMD has had APM forever, which is exactly what you are describing, limiting the TDP to a certain value and cutting back on performance before it reaches a certain point. Even my old Opteron 165 has APM.

If those graphs are for the entire system, they're pretty great.

I'd say it's a combination of APM not working properly and 7850k turbo not working properly to use all the of the TDP. If that's true, it means that there's probably a lot more to gain from 7850k overclocked than stock.

What's really interesting to me is how the L3 actually takes more more space than two extra modules. Given how servers are so often not running software that's poorly threaded, I kind of would have thought that AMD would consider just abandoning L3 on Opteron/FX and adding more cores. 10% single core improvement isn't as good as 50% more cores, if you ask me.

AMD could just ship a 6m/12c part for $350, 5m/10c for $250, 4m/8c for $150 and left the rest to APUs and done a lot better. But that's just my opinion. Maybe we'll see something like that happen on a later platform. Basically, give up competing with Intel for single thread and just throw as many cores on a die as possible, until you reach 32 or so and then start increasing IPC without killing clocks.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> AMD could just ship a 6m/12c part for $350, 5m/10c for $250, 4m/8c for $150 and left the rest to APUs and done a lot better. But that's just my opinion. Maybe we'll see something like that happen on a later platform. Basically, give up competing with Intel for single thread and just throw as many cores on a die as possible, until you reach 32 or so and then start increasing IPC without killing clocks.


Potentially you are talking about selling cpu parts with a 390mm^2+ floorplan for $350 kind risky for something that is major revised architecture all "big" dies require a big pre-mass-fab phase. (that is without the L3)


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> I Suppose so. But if this was Richland at 4.9 Ghz and I was trying to pair this with a 290X I would be branded a heretic and crazyface around here for such audacity.


Well Kaveri is a totally different type of beast, and you stand a good chance that games will soon be able to take advantage of the iGPU even when a discreet is present.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Potentially you are talking about selling cpu parts with a 390mm^2+ floorplan for $350 kind risky for something that is major revised architecture all "big" dies require a big pre-mass-fab phase. (that is without the L3)


Vishera FX has a die size of 315 mm2, Since L3 cache takes up right about 50% of the die size, AMD could theoretically replace all L3 with 4 more modules and create a 16 core part in right about 315 mm2 space (on 32nm). Using 28nm it would be even smaller.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Vishera FX has a die size of 315 mm2, Since L3 cache takes up right about 50% of the die size, AMD could theoretically replace all L3 with 4 more modules and create a 16 core part in right about 315 mm2 space (on 32nm). Using 28nm it would be even smaller.


Yeah but 390+ is a big difference a major difference especially for a cpu that is far more complex even though it is less dense than a gpu if a cpu layout was forgiving they would've made it way more dense. You're clearly not thinking this trough the modules in AMD's Piledriver FX were smaller than the Steamroller core and form what we know on the universal 28nm "SHP" node 2 modules with no L3 cache took up 53% of the 245mm^2 die which results in 0,53 * 245 =~130mm^2 you would end up with a big die.

Big die means less on a wafer which means lower number of chips the defective rate also increases so it stacks. You'll have less chips and a higher defect rate.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Steamroller core and form what we know on the universal 28nm "SHP" node 2 modules with no L3 cache took up 53% of the 245mm^2 die which results in 0,53 * 245 =~130mm^2 you would end up with a big die..


No... 2 Steamroller modules, plus the memory controller (which is big), and the PCI-E lanes (which are big) and all other parts of the CPU take up 53% of the die space.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> No... 2 Steamroller modules, plus the memory controller (which is big), and the PCI-E lanes (which are big) and all other parts of the CPU take up 53% of the die space.


For a high end platform you still'd want the PCI-e lanes I suppose I would say you'd still want 64 of them PCI-e 3.0. As for the Memory controller quad channel 64b so yeah it would give you a little reducement since you'd only need 2x the PCI-e part and 2x the memory bus part the die would still end up being quite big.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Big die means less on a wafer which means lower number of chips the defective rate also increases so it stacks. You'll have less chips and a higher defect rate.


Which makes me wonder, would it be feasible and/or worthwhile for AMD to produce that huge monolithic 16-core SR chip ,sell all perfect samples as opterons, name the imperfect 12core and 14core units as FX and send them to enthusiasts? Even 14 SR cores are clearly faster in full MT workloads than 6 IB hyperthreaded cores, they could fetch a 450ish price and ,300-350ish for the 12 core. Probably not,since it would demand a new platform, but it does leave a glimmer of hope for the future.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Which makes me wonder, would it be feasible and/or worthwhile for AMD to produce that huge monolithic 16-core SR chip ,sell all perfect samples as opterons, name the imperfect 12core and 14core units as FX and send them to enthusiasts? Even 14 SR cores are clearly faster in full MT workloads than 6 IB hyperthreaded cores, they could fetch a 450ish price and ,300-350ish for the 12 core. Probably not,since it would demand a new platform, but it does leave a glimmer of hope for the future.


The main problem is that AMD's Opteron line also has chips with 14, 12 and 10 cores making the only ones that go to the enthusiasts the ones that don't actually make the TDP or are in excess.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> The main problem is that AMD's Opteron line also has chips with 14, 12 and 10 cores making the only ones that go to the enthusiasts the ones that don't actually make the TDP or are in excess.


Those are different, they use the same quad module die FX is based upon-you can't really sell MCMs to desktop users that easily these days. It is down to yields of course (smaller dies get better results) but size-wise a pair of quad modules should be similar to an octo module chip. So a monolithic chip would in theory produce more competitive derivatives - a pair of FX-8xx0 goes for 300-400 euros (depends if it is 8320 or 8350) and they are full dies. A full 16core that doesn't meet opteron standards could legitimately sell for more than a 4930k (600+) a (harvested) 14core would sell for 450+. Cut down PD quad modules (that use the same die still) are sold as hexacores and quads for 90-110 each, 180-220 a pair. A hexa module could sell for 300-350 or so.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I made this, but just for fun. Inspired by Enignma's post.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh... Well now...
> I know there is a lot more to it than everyone in this thread knows, but what are the chances of that with EX? It will be on a smaller size than PD....
Click to expand...

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Vishera FX has a die size of 315 mm2, Since L3 cache takes up right about 50% of the die size, AMD could theoretically replace all L3 with 4 more modules and create a 16 core part in right about 315 mm2 space (on 32nm). Using 28nm it would be even smaller.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Which makes me wonder, would it be feasible and/or worthwhile for AMD to produce that huge monolithic 16-core SR chip ,sell all perfect samples as opterons, name the imperfect 12core and 14core units as FX and send them to enthusiasts? Even 14 SR cores are clearly faster in full MT workloads than 6 IB hyperthreaded cores, they could fetch a 450ish price and ,300-350ish for the 12 core. Probably not,since it would demand a new platform, but it does leave a glimmer of hope for the future.


What we were suggesting. Having 12m SR chips (like the picture just smaller node to fit more necessities) for servers would bring in quite a bit of money. The IPC gain + 24 cores + no more shared decoder would mean insane MT performance. Maybe they are just getting through the first batch of wafers and waiting for the right time or a revision to do this.


----------



## yawa

I'd rather have this on excavator personally.

But that's my deal.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> I'd rather have this on excavator personally.
> 
> But that's my deal.


Since you mentioned it, is EX supposed to be FM2+? would hate to have to switch boards again next year


----------



## yawa

Depends on what I'm switching for. If it's for DDR4 support on an 8 core APU, not in the least.


----------



## DapperDan795

That's a good point too


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> I'd rather have this on excavator personally.
> 
> But that's my deal.


agreed, i'm rather looking forward to EX seeing the leaps gained "theoretically" so far atleast.

I'm seeing alot of places too go with this.. even indirect competition with INTEL on certain platforms *cough* mac *cough* as that is a openCL heavy platform, wouldn't take much to write OS XI with HSA compatibility.

i'm curious how the enthusiast process will turn out for SR/EX, as i seriously doubt they will use the same process for those chips as the apus..


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> For a high end platform you still'd want the PCI-e lanes I suppose I would say you'd still want 64 of them PCI-e 3.0


"Ideally", yes. No current high end GPU is limited by 3.0 x8 though, so 32 lanes would be fine.

3.0x4 * 4 would also be pretty acceptable for quad gpu, if it was native (3.0*4 is faster than 2.0*8.. which doesn't limit 290x in a notable way)


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I made this, but just for fun. Inspired by Enignma's post.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh... Well now...
> I know there is a lot more to it than everyone in this thread knows, but what are the chances of that with EX? It will be on a smaller size than PD....
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Vishera FX has a die size of 315 mm2, Since L3 cache takes up right about 50% of the die size, AMD could theoretically replace all L3 with 4 more modules and create a 16 core part in right about 315 mm2 space (on 32nm). Using 28nm it would be even smaller.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Which makes me wonder, would it be feasible and/or worthwhile for AMD to produce that huge monolithic 16-core SR chip ,sell all perfect samples as opterons, name the imperfect 12core and 14core units as FX and send them to enthusiasts? Even 14 SR cores are clearly faster in full MT workloads than 6 IB hyperthreaded cores, they could fetch a 450ish price and ,300-350ish for the 12 core. Probably not,since it would demand a new platform, but it does leave a glimmer of hope for the future.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> What we were suggesting. Having 12m SR chips (like the picture just smaller node to fit more necessities) for servers would bring in quite a bit of money. The IPC gain + 24 cores + no more shared decoder would mean insane MT performance. Maybe they are just getting through the first batch of wafers and waiting for the right time or a revision to do this.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if they were waiting for a customer to come through and place an order of thousands of these chips for a super computer or something. That way, AMD could sell all the leaky ones to enthusiasts as FX or whatever and keep all the lower power ones for the main client.

But it's much like I've been saying all along. AMD is sort of held back by the AM3+ platform and can't release anything extraordinary on it because of limitations. It's a really bad time to launch a new platform, at least if you're AMD and you like to try and keep sockets around for more than a year or two, with DDR4 coming either late this year or in 2015 and with there not being a viable solution for some sort of shared memory between dGPU and dCPU. And yes, I realize that HSA would have massive limitations with dGPU and dCPU as opposed to an APU, but the throughput added could make up for it in non-super computer scale platforms. I'd even argue there's not a good enough fab process for an enthusiast level chip. As we've seen with 28nm GloFo, it has the same issues Intel does, it hits an overclocking wall and no matter how many volts you give it, it won't clock higher. I don't think AMD is ready to take a brand of chip that's renowned for hitting ridiculous frequencies on ln2 and such and then giving everyone an FX that struggles to make it past 4.5ghz.

For me, the 5ghz overclock I have has a huge psychological thing going for it, and bumping down to the mid 4ghz range would just seem backwards. I know an SR 4m/8c at 4.5ghz would still be pretty good against a 5ghz Piledriver, but 5ghz just sounds so much cooler. And steamroller doesn't have that cool thing going for it. No "omg so much cores!" or "zomg so much frequencies!", just evolution of Piledriver. I personally like to make builds that are unique and turn at least a few heads. And it's usually funny, because everyone usually goes "lol that's so dumb you don't need that much ram/cpu power/cores/etc", and every time a few years later that's what we're using. I remember when I had a single core Pentium Prescott at almost 4ghz (it maxed out at like 3.97ghz, drove me nuts), and everyone would go "lol wat do u need dat power for????" Now that would be laughable at best. We even have 4ghz stock chips shipping.

In fact, I've spent my entire computer life listening to people say "that's useless, you don't need that" or "you can't use two cores, that's a waste!" and every time they've been wrong. From having 1.5GB of ram and having people flip out to clock speeds.

Because of that, I just feel like we're definitely going to see a massive core count AMD CPU for consumers.

Not to mention a 16 core Steamroller with 4 R9 290x chips running a Mantle game that scales to all 16 cores would be an absolutely awesome halo product for AMD. At the very least, it'd make a lot of the Intel guys who go "LOL AMD VALUE AMD SUXXX" shut up (for a little bit at least).


----------



## 122512

Servers depend on multithreaded x86_64 throughput, correct? SIMD performance and ST performance isn't as important, correct? Memory stores and loads as well as latency of instruction and data is also crucial to performance, correct?

Just clarifying.


----------



## rabidz7

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *elemein*
> 
> Servers depend on multithreaded x86_64 throughput, correct? SIMD performance and ST performance isn't as important, correct? Memory stores and loads as well as latency of instruction and data is also crucial to performance, correct?
> 
> Just clarifying.


Most large servers are not x86.


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *rabidz7*
> 
> Most large servers are not x86.


I was referring to the ones that were x86...


----------



## nitrubbb

so there is not chance 7850k iGPU will dual-graphics with r7 260x?

im thinking about getting 270x along with 7850K but would hate my guts later if crossfire support for 260x would be added later on via driver update


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> so there is not chance 7850k iGPU will dual-graphics with r7 260x?
> 
> im thinking about getting 270x along with 7850K but would hate my guts later if crossfire support for 260x would be added later on via driver update


Depends on what the drivers bring and under Mantle games it is probably fully supported.
So it is not a no but it is also not a full yes...


----------



## miklkit

So, that means it is a definite maybe.


----------



## Paul17041993

ohhello whats this thread then?

(subbed)


----------



## yawa

Click and scroll up.

Just trust me.

http://amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?for=532&t=140052&p=226938&sid=3a025603b2cd06259f403fa6773ba291#p226938


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Click and scroll up.
> 
> Just trust me.
> 
> http://amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?for=532&t=140052&p=226938&sid=3a025603b2cd06259f403fa6773ba291#p226938


that... um... is this even realistic...? its... could this mean...


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> that... um... is this even realistic...? its... could this mean...


I would say its fairly legit. maybe a cherry picked sample.... but still


----------



## Paul17041993

for one bench, and being literally almost 3 times as fast as its predecessor, I know for a fact HSA will bring gains in all sorts of places but that's ridiculous...

if that doesn't encourage the use of openCL 2.0 (which has just been released I see), I don't know what will...


----------



## 122512

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> for one bench, and being literally almost 3 times as fast as its predecessor, I know for a fact HSA will bring gains in all sorts of places but that's ridiculous...
> 
> if that doesn't encourage the use of openCL 2.0 (which has just been released I see), I don't know what will...


That's not ridiculous at all. Well written HSA software can certainly get 2-3x speedup. It's vastly more efficient.

Not sure if that'll really kickstart the HSA initiative though.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> for one bench, and being literally almost 3 times as fast as its predecessor, I know for a fact HSA will bring gains in all sorts of places but that's ridiculous...
> 
> if that doesn't encourage the use of openCL 2.0 (which has just been released I see), I don't know what will...


I don't see why it's so ridiculous to you. I saw a two times speedup by switching from official Blender build to one optimized in Gentoo. The software makes a massive difference. It's why I recommend people optimize software before buying new hardware if they're doing something open sourced and stand to benefit from getting custom compilation done.

HSA is just an absolute extreme version of this. However there will probably be a time where, if you run Gentoo, you simply edit a configuration file to include "HSA" and you get every piece of HSA software enabled software you install on your machine with HSA enabled. I'm really looking forward to that day.

HSA removes a massive bottleneck of OpenCL and GPGPU.

The way it works right now, if you want to do something with OpenCL or CUDA or whatever, you have to make a copy in system memory (RAM), then copy the entire thing over to the GPU, and then the GPU does calculations. Then it ships the new data back to system memory.

That's really slow in computer terms. HSA lets things work like this.

>CPU working on some sort of data in system memory
>HSA goes "well this would be faster if the GPU does it
>GPU just reads everything from system memory
>GPU finishes up
>new data is already there for CPU to use.

You can also think of it like this. Person C represents the CPU and Person G represents the GPU.

The standard GPGPU model right now is sort of like if Person C and Person G were working on a project together, but they were on opposite ends of the country. Once Person C makes a change to the project, he needs to send it to Person G so Person G can see the changes. This takes a lot of time.

HSA is like putting Person C and Person G in the same exact room and letting them work together. Not only do you not have to wait for data to be traded between the two, but Person C can see what Person G is doing in real time (and vice versa).


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see why it's so ridiculous to you. I saw a two times speedup by switching from official Blender build to one optimized in Gentoo. The software makes a massive difference. It's why I recommend people optimize software before buying new hardware if they're doing something open sourced and stand to benefit from getting custom compilation done.
> 
> HSA is just an absolute extreme version of this. However there will probably be a time where, if you run Gentoo, you simply edit a configuration file to include "HSA" and you get every piece of HSA software enabled software you install on your machine with HSA enabled. I'm really looking forward to that day.
> 
> HSA removes a massive bottleneck of OpenCL and GPGPU.
> 
> The way it works right now, if you want to do something with OpenCL or CUDA or whatever, you have to make a copy in system memory (RAM), then copy the entire thing over to the GPU, and then the GPU does calculations. Then it ships the new data back to system memory.
> 
> That's really slow in computer terms. HSA lets things work like this.
> 
> >CPU working on some sort of data in system memory
> >HSA goes "well this would be faster if the GPU does it
> >GPU just reads everything from system memory
> >GPU finishes up
> >new data is already there for CPU to use.
> 
> You can also think of it like this. Person C represents the CPU and Person G represents the GPU.
> 
> The standard GPGPU model right now is sort of like if Person C and Person G were working on a project together, but they were on opposite ends of the country. Once Person C makes a change to the project, he needs to send it to Person G so Person G can see the changes. This takes a lot of time.
> 
> HSA is like putting Person C and Person G in the same exact room and letting them work together. Not only do you not have to wait for data to be traded between the two, but Person C can see what Person G is doing in real time (and vice versa).


And person G has hyperactivity disorder and is great at simple fast tasks while person C is genius and can solve the most difficult problems step by step. Totally explained that with a real life example









Total integration would mean a combo of those 2 resulting in some super genius autistic person.


----------



## Paul17041993

I know why its so much faster really, using a pointer or general memory reference is a crapload better then copying memory, especially if its an array of particles, I even have a particle system I made for an XNA game project, multithreaded, and making copies of the particles to overcome thread collision was definitely a lot worse then synchronizing.

but never have I really realized that as much as half or more of GPGPU cycles could be taken solely from buffer copying... where has HSA been all these years...


----------



## os2wiz

Micro Center has Kaveri A10-7850k going for 129.99 in store only. Picked one up with the Asus A88X Pro motherbiard. Will do my build sometime next week. Need to pick up a new dvd blu ray drive and a copy of windows 8.1.


----------



## NaroonGTX

For anyone who cares: ISSCC Presentation on Steamroller


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> For anyone who cares: ISSCC Presentation on Steamroller


Naroon this has to be some terrible translation. Verbs are left out . It is very hard to decipher a good part of this presentation. This can NOT be the official transcript. Can't you get the original English language transcript? This seems to be a translation from a translation.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I agree it's difficult to understand exactly what was being said. The original author was Japanese I think, and this site must've translated from Japanese to whatever language that is, then translated to English. I haven't found the original yet.


----------



## Seronx

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20140214_635132.html


----------



## Durquavian

Says from Czech. But wasn't too bad to understand.


----------



## DapperDan795

Holy crap, NaroonGTX and Seronx back in the same thread? The stars must be aligned properly. Good to see you both posting again, always love the AMD info from you both.


----------



## nitrubbb

what would be even better is if the info provided would be accurate


----------



## Seronx

^-- The three major things to take with you.

1st image;
12 metal layers => High Speed Library.
236M Transistors => Very minimal increase in xtors.
1.35v(max) => Still no real improvement in power consumption.

2nd image;
Most of it will make Steamroller run a couple percentages better than Piledriver.

3rd image;
Metal stack arrangement => Isn't compatible with FD-SOI and ISDA GlobalFoundries bulk which only has 1x, 2x, 8x. So, yes it is an AMD only process from GlobalFoundries.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Depends on what the drivers bring and under Mantle games it is probably fully supported.
> So it is not a no but it is also not a full yes...


So what was the big to do on this thread about a month ago claiming dual graphics capability with all GCN 1.1 cards?? I distinctly remember that being a major point here. Who was the falsifier of information? I just ordered a R7 260X based on that disinformation.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Says from Czech. But wasn't too bad to understand.


For you.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> So what was the big to do on this thread about a month ago claiming dual graphics capability with all GCN 1.1 cards?? I distinctly remember that being a major point here. Who was the falsifier of information? I just ordered a R7 260X based on that disinformation.


I had checked because I am building a kaveri rig for a coworker and r7 270 and up are to support mantel (thats what is on AMDS's site)


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

lets remember something here..

we are still on beta drivers. we have still not gotten the finished drivers yet.

it is more then likely that the XDMA card will work in dual graphics AT SOME POINT.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> I had checked because I am building a kaveri rig for a coworker and r7 270 and up are to support mantel (thats what is on AMDS's site)


I am not talking about Mantle, I am talking about dual graphics capability.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> lets remember something here..
> 
> we are still on beta drivers. we have still not gotten the finished drivers yet.
> 
> it is more then likely that the XDMA card will work in dual graphics AT SOME POINT.


Why do you assume that and "AT Some Point" , meaning a year or 2 from now????


----------



## Seronx

XDMA unit based crossfire via Dual Graphics, Asynchronous Crossfire, etc. Will have to be implemented by the driver to recognize that it can fuse.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I am not talking about Mantle, I am talking about dual graphics capability.


My bad
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> XDMA unit based crossfire via Dual Graphics, Asynchronous Crossfire, etc. Will have to be implemented by the driver to recognize that it can fuse.


^This


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> XDMA unit based crossfire via Dual Graphics, Asynchronous Crossfire, etc. Will have to be implemented by the driver to recognize that it can fuse.


Thanks for the explanation, but I do not believe those driver requirements are specific to Mantle. Mantle can work on any graphics cards , including Nvidia.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Thanks for the explanation, but I do not believe those driver requirements are specific to Mantle. Mantle can work on any graphics cards , including Nvidia.


That's only true theoretically and only talk, mentioned in a presentation somewhere. I could not find anything about how it actually works in practice, how code using it looks like. It might not be possible to implement whatever it does well without GCN.

It also surely needs to be written by the guys that know how the hardware actually works, which would be NVIDIA. I suspect they'll never do that, support Mantle, just so developers won't be tempted to use Mantle. To make their stuff work comparable performance-wise, they'd rather hack something together with OpenGL extensions for example.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Why do you assume that and "AT Some Point" , meaning a year or 2 from now????


not likely that long. i wouldn't be surprised if we saw it within 6 months.

but again i don't really know.

i just don't see it taking much longer then that. for all we know it could all be turned on when we get signed drivers.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Thanks for the explanation, but I do not believe those driver requirements are specific to Mantle. Mantle can work on any graphics cards , including Nvidia.


can work, but doesn't

Yes it is an open source API, but as of yet Nvidia's not implementing it.

i'm sure the driver interacts with it, but it is separate


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Why do you assume that and "AT Some Point" , meaning a year or 2 from now????


better late than never tho

I do have doubts tho - that would be by far the biggest selling point of kaveri and AMD has not said anything about it : (


----------



## Paul17041993

openGL and direct3D run via driver wrappers, everything in your render is pre-processed in software and can pose a performance bottleneck, mantle however is an API similar to openCL and accesses the hardware directly and specifically, which of course makes things slightly harder but the API is intended to handle specific architectural details and is why its still in private alpha/beta.

once it comes out of the private phase nvidia will most likely implement the API interface on their architectures too, because it would be stupid for them to not to, they entered openCL support for the same reason when the AMD (ATI) HD 5k series had such potential.


----------



## chromejaguar

does anyone know about further releases of Kaveri apus; I think Ive seen some slides around.. somewhere


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *chromejaguar*
> 
> does anyone know about further releases of Kaveri apus; I think Ive seen some slides around.. somewhere


All of the Kaveri parts should be out by the end of July.


----------



## crazymania88

IT's really hard to read all this thread guys so I gonna ask this:
Will there be new 8 core AMD CPU? or at least APU?

I hear doomsday scenarios all over about AMD leaving competition


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *crazymania88*
> 
> IT's really hard to read all this thread guys so I gonna ask this:
> Will there be new 8 core AMD CPU? or at least APU?
> 
> I hear doomsday scenarios all over about AMD leaving competition


Looks likely to me there'll be a new chipset around first half of 2015 w/ ddr4 and excavator perhaps - pretty much speculation though


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *crazymania88*
> 
> IT's really hard to read all this thread guys so I gonna ask this:
> Will there be new 8 core AMD CPU? or at least APU?
> 
> I hear doomsday scenarios all over about AMD leaving competition


Well considering Kaveri is out, that means the APU is out. APUS will not be 8 core due to the space needed for the iGPU

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> Looks likely to me there'll be a new chipset around first half of 2015 w/ ddr4 and excavator perhaps - pretty much speculation though


Most likely this.

As for a Dedicaed 8 core CPU with Steamroller.. most likely not due to the push for HSA


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Didn't someone say that a 6-core with the L3 Cache have enough room for a _decent_ iGPU? I've seen the size of the L3 cache... That sucker is big.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *F3ERS 2 ASH3S*
> 
> Well considering Kaveri is out, that means the APU is out. APUS will not be 8 core due to the space needed for the iGPU
> Most likely this.
> 
> As for a Dedicaed 8 core CPU with Steamroller.. most likely not due to the push for HSA


That's fine. I'd settle for a dual-socket motherboard that would allow the use of two quad-core APU's with their iGPUs working in Crossfire. I wonder if that would even be possible to create, though.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> That's fine. I'd settle for a dual-socket motherboard that would allow the use of two quad-core APU's with their iGPUs working in Crossfire. I wonder if that would even be possible to create, though.


possible yes probable at least not any time soon


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *crazymania88*
> 
> IT's really hard to read all this thread guys so I gonna ask this:
> Will there be new 8 core AMD CPU? or at least APU?
> 
> I hear doomsday scenarios all over about AMD leaving competition


really at this point I'm only expecting a more high-end APU, doubt AMD really wants anything to do with basic x86-64 anymore, I would love to see a 6 or 8 core (3 or 4 x86-64 compute units) APU but I wouldn't expect it to really happen, or at least not on FM2+...

next upgrade plans wise I'm looking at an FM2+ board, but at the same time a lot of the ones on the market don't seem incredibly great for overclocking, if ASUS makes a ROG board for it I'll jump to it straight away...
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> That's fine. I'd settle for a dual-socket motherboard that would allow the use of two quad-core APU's with their iGPUs working in Crossfire. I wonder if that would even be possible to create, though.


very possible, but you would only see it on micro-server boxes, likely with 8 total sockets to each parent board.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> That's fine. I'd settle for a dual-socket motherboard that would allow the use of two quad-core APU's with their iGPUs working in Crossfire. I wonder if that would even be possible to create, though.


Actually that does bring up a good thought. I have 7770x2 CF and gotta say 60FPS with high settings is easy. Two kaveris would be a monster gamer with Mantle and HSA/Huma.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Didn't someone say that a 6-core with the L3 Cache have enough room for a _decent_ iGPU? I've seen the size of the L3 cache... That sucker is big.


There would be enough room, but only if the die size were increased drastically to accommodate all this. Current Kaveri is 245mm^2, with 3 modules and L3 cache plus a decent GPU, we'd be looking at something approaching close to 400mm^2 or higher even, depending on how potent the GPU was, all on 28nm.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> That's fine. I'd settle for a dual-socket motherboard that would allow the use of two quad-core APU's with their iGPUs working in Crossfire. I wonder if that would even be possible to create, though.


Dual-socket or higher Kaveri wouldn't make sense, as there is no Hypertransport-style technology to assist with chip-to-chip communication inside Kaveri. This would defeat the purpose of HSA (which is super-fast low-latency communication between components).


----------



## crazymania88

so if I want a faster CPU, I am going intel and intel gonna overprice things even more


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *crazymania88*
> 
> so if I want a faster CPU, I am going intel and intel gonna overprice things even more


if you want, but if you wanted the fastest possible response time on spreadsheets in libreoffice an A10 7k will do that better then anything








I'm not joking either, libre absolutely loves HSA...

as I develop my own little game engine Ill be basing it with very strong support for HSA, though you likely wouldn't ever see any games on it for at least another year or two, like most other engines, at this point its more of a wait game as the languages and libraries mature on it, full HSA on java for example is planned for java 1.9 ( "9" ) which isn't due till some time in 2015.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *crazymania88*
> 
> so if I want a faster CPU, I am going intel and intel gonna overprice things even more


Intel will get you the best gaming experience, easily. But I don't think Intel will overprice things more than they already have. Their prices have been stagnant for ages, with no real adjustments for years. Even the older 2nd Gen Core i processors retail for the same prices they did when they first launched.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Intel will get you the best gaming experience, easily. But I don't think Intel will overprice things more than they already have. Their prices have been stagnant for ages, with no real adjustments for years. Even the older 2nd Gen Core i processors retail for the same prices they did when they first launched.


Naroon, what is your take on the issue msny are reporting of Kaveri throttling even with turbo disabled? Also is there any reationship between cpu/nb speed and memory speed as in previous Processors? If not what change in Kaveri caused the change?


----------



## NaroonGTX

The Kaveri throttling issue puzzles me, to be honest. I think it can be fixed with a BIOS update, but the issue has been reported across a wide variety of different MOBO's from different manufacturers, so it may go deeper. It would be a heavy blow to AMD if this was an issue with the processor itself, kind of reminds me of the Phenom I "cold bug" and TLB issues back in the day. This also makes me wonder if any of the reviews suffered from this throttling when they did benches.

As for the CPU NB and RAM, I remember the NB granting a little extra performance on the Phenom II platform, but it mainly depended on the application being used. This didn't have much of an effect when Zambezi and Vishera came around, so it mostly had to do with the CPU architecture. Since AMD moved the NB to the chip itself starting with Llano and continuing through with FM2(+) chips, I guess it further deviated away from that norm. Bulldozer family processors in general don't seem to gain much from an increased NB speed -- however several people have reported that they get higher stable iGPU overclocks with more NB voltage.

Kaveri is a mysterious little chip for sure. Even with my previous experience tinkering with APU's since Llano, Kaveri has certain elements that elude me (and many others). Wonder if AMD will address this issue (cpu throttling under iGPU load), or if not we'll probably have to contact them directly.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Didn't someone say that a 6-core with the L3 Cache have enough room for a _decent_ iGPU? I've seen the size of the L3 cache... That sucker is big.
> 
> 
> 
> There would be enough room, but only if the die size were increased drastically to accommodate all this. Current Kaveri is 245mm^2, with 3 modules and L3 cache plus a decent GPU, we'd be looking at something approaching close to 400mm^2 or higher even, depending on how potent the GPU was, all on 28nm.
> Dual-socket or higher Kaveri wouldn't make sense, as there is no Hypertransport-style technology to assist with chip-to-chip communication inside Kaveri. This would defeat the purpose of HSA (which is super-fast low-latency communication between components).
Click to expand...

I should have specified, I'm not talking about an iGPU you see in the new chips right now. It would be smaller, as well as having a module removed to make it 6 core. I know that still take up a lot of room, and die sizes would be larger. Although, now since I have a good night rest for once... Not going to happen right now. HSA is getting most of it's power from the addition of the iGPU. Lowering the iGPU (by size and strength) would cripple what AMD has done. My bad guys


----------



## sdlvx

Has anyone who is having problems with Kaveri tried to disable APM?

It seems like APM would be a likely culprit as it throttles things to maintain a TDP, and putting load on GPU and having CPU throttle down would be a textbook example of APM doing its job.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Has anyone who is having problems with Kaveri tried to disable APM?
> 
> It seems like APM would be a likely culprit as it throttles things to maintain a TDP, and putting load on GPU and having CPU throttle down would be a textbook example of APM doing its job.


Yes they have. The question is whether it is actually able to be disabled. Same question applies to turbo mode. I notice there are 2 other settings that are unusual and have to be addressed . There is a target tdp setting, 95 watts is not listed as an option, It can be auto or settings all the way up to 65 watts. I chose auto with no idea if that is correct.The other setting is processor level, with various confusing choices. I set mine to one core to compute unit. No idea if that was the correct choice.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> I set mine to one core to compute unit. No idea if that was the correct choice.


One core to compute unit is; one activated core with one deactivated core per compute unit.


----------



## Himo5

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> One core to compute unit is; one activated core with one deactivated core per compute unit.


That's right, and a 4900MHz overclock at 1.49375V should be possible with it. If someone would like to set just 1 core I'd like to know if they can get 5000GHz to validate without Bclk drifting below 100 and making it impossible. I've got Kaveri into the 1GHz club but the 5GHz Club would be much better.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> however several people have reported that they get higher stable iGPU overclocks with more NB voltage.


one classic rule of overclocking; everything will likely need at least a little extra voltage, its just voltage stability, the more you push something the more the rest has to work to keep up alongside voltage regulation degradation across the system.

has anyone actually done any board mods to push things further? I haven't really found much along the lines of high-end overclocks on FM2+ yet, still have to question how much the boards actually limit the chips...


----------



## Himo5

5812MHz with LN2 and some talk of a coldbug.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> One core to compute unit is; one activated core with one deactivated core per compute unit.[/quote
> 
> So what is the best setting to maximize compute cores??? I do not care for higher megahertz if it means less cores being used.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> So what is the best setting to maximize compute cores??? I do not care for higher megahertz if it means less cores being used.


You want [Auto] or [Disabled] if you want all cores to be enabled.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> You want [Auto] or [Disabled] if you want all cores to be enabled.


yes there is auto mode, the other choices sound even worse than 1 core per compute unit


----------



## Paul17041993

the minimum you can ever have is one cpu core, which would be one-per-unit and only one unit/module enabled. You just leave it on the default (usually "auto") if you're not interested in disabling cores for more OC, and usually you disable specific ones that drop out too easily if you wanted to do it properly...


----------



## Himo5

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> yes there is auto mode, the other choices sound even worse than 1 core per compute unit


The options are (with A10-7850K):
Automatic mode [4 cores]
One core per processor [1 core]
One Compute Unit [2 cores]
One core per Compute Unit [2 cores]

The help text in the UEFI BIOS, not given in the manual, relating to North Bridge frequency is as follows (complete with confusing grammar):

Adjust NB Frequency.
The NB frequency can be lowered to allow more OC margin for the memory, or higher to boost memory performance. Note that the relative ratio between the NB frequency has to be 1.25/1 or bigger for proper operation system.

This notice was first given by Asus on FM2 boards such as the F2A85-V PRO.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Has anyone who is having problems with Kaveri tried to disable APM?
> 
> It seems like APM would be a likely culprit as it throttles things to maintain a TDP, and putting load on GPU and having CPU throttle down would be a textbook example of APM doing its job.


on or off mine throttled like no tomorrow.


----------



## Papadope

Is there a HPC option next to APM in the bios?


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Is there a HPC option next to APM in the bios?


if there was it was tested with it on and off. again no difference.

I am expecting to hear back from the store within a few days, hopefully they've gotten somewhere with testing it.


----------



## Paul17041993

all I know about HPC is it makes my FX-8150 run hotter at idle, I can only assume it just keeps parts from going into idle mode, haven't touched it since I first set up my current rig about a year back so I cant remember specifically what it does to everything...


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> all I know about HPC is it makes my FX-8150 run hotter at idle, I can only assume it just keeps parts from going into idle mode, haven't touched it since I first set up my current rig about a year back so I cant remember specifically what it does to everything...


HPC locks in the max clock from Idle. So if your Idle is 1.5Ghz and your max clock is 5.0Ghz then when it gets activity it goes straight to 5.0Ghz with no steps between. I don't use it myself anymore so I cant remember if it locks all cores up to max at the same time or just the ones in use.


----------



## Themisseble

https://www.change.org/petitions/advanced-micro-devices-amd-amd-release-high-end-fx-processor-with-steamroller-microarchitecture#share


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> https://www.change.org/petitions/advanced-micro-devices-amd-amd-release-high-end-fx-processor-with-steamroller-microarchitecture#share


why do ppl waste their time with this stuff?

you really think a petition is going to strong arm a company into releasing something that isn't ready yet?

what really makes you think there won't be an FX steamroller? do i need to remind ppl that the R9 290/X was no where to be seen on the road maps. yet it came out..

put NO faith in any road map "leaks" wait for definite announcements.

FX on SHP bulk would be pointless. if you havn't noticed this process has a clock cap pretty much everyone is hitting (with or without throttling)

and FX may not see SR soon, but by the end of the year i'm sure there will be stock if it is announced or not.

I don't see the waiting period being related directly to AMD at all.. its the foundry and fabs that are not there yet..

not signed....

I cannot see FX SR coming out before the unified socket is released.. AM3+ can't do this and FM2+ can't either. (don't forget the next FX is going to be a APU 95% sure of that, we've got an opteron Apu on the server side.)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Even if this petition were to "work" (in some insane universe where logic is warped horribly), that would mean this processor -- based on Steamroller -- would release at the earliest in 2016, which would be utterly pointless seeing as how processors using the Excavator core will be released for some time by then.


----------



## Themisseble

hehe
sing in lets get 10 000. We know that AMD wont make steamroller refresh, but it is good to have great support to release steamroller as fast as possible. They will wait for DDR4 and they should do AM4 socket also 20nm would be great

They did a lot with steamroller
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/177099-secrets-of-steamroller-digging-deep-into-amds-next-gen-core

excavator must bring better FPU


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> hehe
> sing in lets get 10 000. We know that AMD wont make steamroller refresh, but it is good to have great support to release steamroller as fast as possible. They will wait for DDR4 and they should do AM4 socket also 20nm would be great
> 
> They did a lot with steamroller
> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/177099-secrets-of-steamroller-digging-deep-into-amds-next-gen-core
> 
> excavator must bring better FPU


I do not support this approach.

I will NOT sign.

i say AGAIN.. we are not waiting on AMD

we are waiting on the FABS the ones making and prepping the silicon....


----------



## jsc1973

True. I'd like to see a Steamroller FX and I'd buy one if it were available, but not on this bulk silicon process that Kaveri is using. That's only good for improving the performance of a GPU. For an FX, we need a smaller process and SOI, and we might need a new chipset and socket as well, since AMD may not want. or even be able, to shoehorn a performance product into AM3+ or FM2+.

I'd be just as happy with an "FX platform" featuring a dual-socket motherboard that lets me use two of the top of the line APU's and Crossfire the GPU's on them, especially if AMD promised that the socket would be good for a few generations like AM3+ was. Carry us through to Carrizo and whatever comes after it.


----------



## Paul17041993

I would love to see a 6 or 8 core version of the 7850k, but only for more legacy or server-like applications where 4 cores just isn't quite enough, also some games like BF4 will use 4 cores too easily, there just isn't quite enough room for multitasking with only 4...

that being said, as HSA picks up and mantle becomes more standard, 4 cores even with only a little improvement would (or should) be fine.

atm whats holding me back from jumping to FM2+, apart from money, is some lack of enthusiasm from board manufacturers, there's no rog or saber FM2+ boards yet for example, only boards in black, brown, blue, green and gold... and *1* has a heatpipe... whatever happened to the whole phase frenzy and cooling designs about the place...? I mean either way the boards would still be cheaper then your AM3+ parts...


----------



## hagtek

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> I would love to see a 6 or 8 core version of the 7850k, but only for more legacy or server-like applications where 4 cores just isn't quite enough, also some games like BF4 will use 4 cores too easily, there just isn't quite enough room for multitasking with only 4...
> 
> that being said, as HSA picks up and mantle becomes more standard, 4 cores even with only a little improvement would (or should) be fine.
> 
> atm whats holding me back from jumping to FM2+, apart from money, is some lack of enthusiasm from board manufacturers, there's no rog or saber FM2+ boards yet for example, only boards in black, brown, blue, green and gold... and *1* has a heatpipe... whatever happened to the whole phase frenzy and cooling designs about the place...? I mean either way the boards would still be cheaper then your AM3+ parts...


Same here, I want to play around with an X4-760K Richland but from what I read the boards are lacking.


----------



## heroxoot

So where are the steamroller laptops so I can buy a school laptop with mid level gaming?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So where are the steamroller laptops so I can buy a school laptop with mid level gaming?


You're lucky. I couldn't wait for SR, but the 5545m is a nice chip I guess.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So where are the steamroller laptops so I can buy a school laptop with mid level gaming?
> 
> 
> 
> You're lucky. I couldn't wait for SR, but the 5545m is a nice chip I guess.
Click to expand...

Honestly I don't NEED a laptop for school, I just want one so I don't have to do my work in my room all the time. My courses are currently online and I don't plan to move to a campus for another year and a half at best.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So where are the steamroller laptops so I can buy a school laptop with mid level gaming?
> 
> 
> 
> You're lucky. I couldn't wait for SR, but the 5545m is a nice chip I guess.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Honestly I don't NEED a laptop for school, I just want one so I don't have to do my work in my room all the time. My courses are currently online and I don't plan to move to a campus for another year and a half at best.
Click to expand...

Oh I see. I'm going to my nearby community college to take care of some gen-eds. I wanted a laptop for web access between periods, notes (if I needed, which I don't), and turned out part of my math class is online, so I can do my online stuff while in class








I got an APU because I knew it would be better than integrated, but didn't want to pay a lot of either an i7 or a dedicated GPU. I small $400 later, and I've got GMod, Killing Floor, and Minecraft/Mods running at great frames. Also help if I'm not at my desktop. It's hard to carry around a 650D


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So where are the steamroller laptops so I can buy a school laptop with mid level gaming?


Not where, but when will the Streamroller Laptops arrive. I'm putting it down within 5 months from now.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Not where, but when will the Streamroller Laptops arrive. I'm putting it down within 5 months from now.


They need to hurry up. OEM's were not too excited with Richland mobile chips and notebooks with it are few and far between. I really hope some Kaveri notebooks will also have a metal chassis and a 1080p display. Nothing crazy, but a top of the line Kaveri notebook with those features for about 750-900$ and I would be all over it.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> They need to hurry up.


The laptop portion isn't getting the exact same treatment as the desktop portion.

Kaveri = Desktop
Kaveri 2.0 = Mobile

Other than Carrizo, only Kaveri 2.0 will have everything unlocked.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Other than Carrizo, only Kaveri 2.0 will have everything unlocked.


What do you mean?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> What do you mean?


Certain things are not possible with FM2+ and FP3 and AMD really wants to win with mobile. So, somethings that weren't supported on FM2+(PGA-Desktop) and FP3(BGA-Server) must be enabled on the undisclosed mobile socket.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Certain things are not possible with FM2+ and FP3 and AMD really wants to win with mobile. So, somethings that weren't supported on FM2+(PGA-Desktop) and FP3(BGA-Server) must be enabled on the undisclosed mobile socket.


what are these things though? I know the memory controller is supposedly quad and/or GDDR5 compatible, maby even ESRAM cache alongside DDR3 if I remember, pretty much as far as I see its the same controller the PS4 and XBOne use, was there anything else they couldn't use on FM2+?

by the time these are in the mobile space I'll likely get a small laptop with one, especially seeing as they have GCN so graphics would be great C:


----------



## Paul17041993

oh! yes! a good looking FM2+ board from asrock has appeared...
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty%20FM2A88X+%20Killer/

no idea how well it performs in overclocking though, only just discovered it on pccasegear this morning...
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=27041


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> oh! yes! a good looking FM2+ board from asrock has appeared...
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty%20FM2A88X+%20Killer/
> 
> no idea how well it performs in overclocking though, only just discovered it on pccasegear this morning...
> http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=27041


I opt'd to get the Extreme6+ over that board.

main difference IIRC is that the extreme6+ can do 8x/8x PCIe 3.0 as well as the HDCP compliant HDMI input

vs the Killer+ does 16x pcie3.0/4x PCIe 2.0 and no HDMI input.

Extreme6+ also has more VRM phases.


----------



## NaroonGTX

From what I heard, the Killer is still outdone by the Extreme6+. I'm waiting on the MSI G45 myself, but I've heard of issues with the 4th PCIe x1 slot.

edit: Ninja'd, lol.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> From what I heard, the Killer is still outdone by the Extreme6+. I'm waiting on the MSI G45 myself, but I've heard of issues with the 4th PCIe x1 slot.
> 
> edit: Ninja'd, lol.


^^ i'm waiting for asus:ROG to get their act together and launch a Crosshair caliber board for FM2+

native quadfire please!!!


----------



## NaroonGTX

A Crosshair would be perfect. From their forums though, ASUS doesn't feel that FM2+ is "viable enough" for a ROG-calibur board.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> From what I heard, the Killer is still outdone by the Extreme6+. I'm waiting on the MSI G45 myself, but I've heard of issues with the 4th PCIe x1 slot.
> 
> edit: Ninja'd, lol.


Look at this, I think they cheapened out the vrm's on the final production board.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig/280#post_21677940


----------



## cdoublejj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> There aren't any technical or physical reasons why a new chip can't come to AM3+. AM3+ as a chipset is fine for the most part, unless you want native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 (I think there was like, one AM3+ board that had PCIe 3.0). Besides that, it's possible for a new SR-based chip to arrive on the socket... The problem is that there's no evidence pointing towards such a processor existing.
> 
> Mantle is mostly about reducing API overheads and thus reducing CPU bottlenecks so you get more performance, and better performance with densely-threaded engines (beyond 4 cores). AMD probably theorized that with Mantle taking off (25+ Frostbite 3 games will support it, and we don't even know the other unannounced engines that will support it), they could ride out Piledriver even longer. We might see an AM3+ Vishera refresh utilizing the Piledriver+ cores we saw in Richland. Due to that, the weaker per-core performance of the current FX chips wouldn't hold back performance so much, so AMD probably sees it unnecessary to rush out a Steamroller-based replacement right now.
> 
> I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's just my theory.


quite a few already have USB 3.0


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Look at this, I think they cheapened out the vrm's on the final production board.
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1459225/i-have-custom-looped-kaveri-and-am-your-guinea-pig/280#post_21677940


Hmm, guess I'll wait for some hands-on testimonies. Have no idea what board I'll be getting now for sure. The G43 looks nice, but I'm still looking around.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> A Crosshair would be perfect. From their forums though, ASUS doesn't feel that FM2+ is "viable enough" for a ROG-calibur board.


are they forgetting that they have the clout to push the envelope?

hell i'd be happy for them to break the mold and engineer something that would allow two 7850k's to work together in one system.. but i have a feeling that isn't possible unless AMD turns some more features on.

other they could be waiting for the unified socket. who knows.

on the other side tho, i can see where ROG is coming from with the not viable enough aspect.
they likely want to see better results from mantle and HSA before diving into the platform.

but mainly i think i just want an ASUS board that doesn't have a freaking gold color scheme.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Here's the link: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?36194-ROG-FM2-A88X-plans/page2

But yeah, I agree. Every other board manufacturer put some of their top-tier style offerings on the FM2+ platform, I don't see why ROG couldn't be there. Sure, the Intel variants are higher-spec'd sometimes, but it's mostly just fancy marketing names and color schemes anyway.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> are they forgetting that they have the clout to push the envelope?
> 
> hell i'd be happy for them to break the mold and engineer something that would allow two 7850k's to work together in one system.. but i have a feeling that isn't possible unless AMD turns some more features on.
> 
> other they could be waiting for the unified socket. who knows.
> 
> on the other side tho, i can see where ROG is coming from with the not viable enough aspect.
> they likely want to see better results from mantle and HSA before diving into the platform.
> 
> but mainly i think i just want an ASUS board that doesn't have a freaking gold color scheme.


unfortunately FM2+ cant do multi-socket as it doesn't have the HT lanes available, or at least I don't think it does, the chip itself does however, but at this point I'm not sure what AMD might be doing about multi-socket APU platforms...

I think at this point I would be happy with the ASUS A88X-Pro, but, like you, I don't fancy the gold scheme...


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> unfortunately FM2+ cant do multi-socket as it doesn't have the HT lanes available, or at least I don't think it does, the chip itself does however, but at this point I'm not sure what AMD might be doing about multi-socket APU platforms...
> 
> I think at this point I would be happy with the ASUS A88X-Pro, but, like you, I don't fancy the gold scheme...


I don't think the inter connect would be too far out of ASUS's capabilities. They managed PCIe 3.0 on the sabertooth..

on the bright side, day off tomorrow and i finally got time to install my replacement kaveri.. hoping this one can atleast hold its clocks.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I don't think the inter connect would be too far out of ASUS's capabilities. They managed PCIe 3.0 on the sabertooth..
> 
> on the bright side, day off tomorrow and i finally got time to install my replacement kaveri.. hoping this one can atleast hold its clocks.


the HT is a special type of link, whereas the PCIe3.0 mod on the sabertooth was just an extra controller that combined the 32PCIe2.0 lanes from the NB that are usually used for graphics, and made them into 32PCIe3.0 lanes, wouldn't provide any gains for CPU>cards but could help with inter-card communication...

pretty much all the AMD processors have 4 HT links, AM3+ has only (I think) one enabled for the NB and FM2+ only has half of one enabled for the hub as the main PCIe is already on-chip. while these are similar in design to PCIe they are specialized for inter-processor communication and have extra components that PCIe doesn't have, so unfortunately you cant use standard PCIe for processor-to-processor or processor to the motherboard.


----------



## Seronx

HT and PEX are much like DP and HDMI. In most cases you can have HDMI to DP and DP to HDMI.

All the links in Kaveri can be Hypertransport and simply using a small conversion process to transition to PCIe. Hypertransport uses less power than PCIe but uses more pins.

Unfortunately this isn't the case as all the links on Kaveri that go out are PCIe.

4 x PCIe x8
1 x PCIe x4

2 x PCIe x8 -> PCIe 3.0 x16 or 2 PCIe 3.0 x8/x8
1 x PCIe x8 -> HDMI / DisplayPort / DVI
1 x PCIe x8 -> VGA / PCI / Ethernet / etc
1 x PCIe x4 -> UMI(connection to southbridge) / another PCIe x4


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 4 x PCIe x8
> 1 x PCIe x4


oh that's right, the link for the hub was a 5th half-set, and the original 4 links are used for the 16xPCIe3.0 and the display interfaces...

so for 2P; the links used for the displays can be used instead to link the two ports, the hub could accept both half-links from each port, and there would be 2x16 PCIe3.0 lanes available for expansion,
4P; similar to 2P, but the links are split to each socket accordingly and one of the links used for the PCIe3.0 is used, leaving one or two hubs that accept 2 or 4 ports each, and 4x8 PCIe3.0 lanes for expansion.

will be interesting to see how AMD goes about this, if they will start making APU "opterons" at all, pretty sure FM2+ couldn't be used for this still due to the HT PCIe mode hardlock... a socket C32 successor maby...?


----------



## Seronx

Berlin which uses the FP3 BGA socket is the APU Opteron. There will be no 2P/4P option for Berlin.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

i've been toying with the thought of multi apu configurations and the possibility of amd going that route.

in theory from a consumer point of view, it would make more sense for the high end platform to be multi apu

as to control the power aspect and compatibility issue we see in the Vishera thread alot. FX-8 chip fitting in to boards that just cannot handle them.

glad my shaky understanding of the HT/PEX lanes isn't too far off.

i'm not saying it wont take work. but i dont think it is out side the realm of possibilities.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> i've been toying with the thought of multi apu configurations and the possibility of amd going that route.


I'm sure AMD will go this route at some point for Opterons, but getting any current APU or any current APU socket, to work in a multiprocessor configuration just isn't going to happen. Existing APUs do not have the I/O for it, and there is no way for a third party to change such inherent capabilities.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> I'm sure AMD will go this route at some point for Opterons, but getting any current APU or any current APU socket, to work in a multiprocessor configuration just isn't going to happen. Existing APUs do not have the I/O for it, and there is no way for a third party to change such inherent capabilities.


it makes more sense for when the unified socket comes around.

but i'm not holding my breath, i don't see my FX-8 being replace as a workhorse any time soon LOL


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> I'm sure AMD will go this route at some point for Opterons, but getting any current APU or any current APU socket, to work in a multiprocessor configuration just isn't going to happen. Existing APUs do not have the I/O for it, and there is no way for a third party to change such inherent capabilities.


multisocket processing configurations are possible with Kaveri.

hUMA is an evolution to ccNUMA which is used in modern Opterons. The feature to use ccNUMA through non-intergrated parts is still there as well.

Kaveri (standalone) = (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses)
Kaveri + Bonaire = (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses) + (Unified Virtual Addresses)
Kaveri + Kaveri + Kaveri = (Unified Virtual Addresses to each other Kaveri but internally all Kaveri's have (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses))

Kaveri_00 =>
1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_01
1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_02

Is completely possible but the operating system needs to support it.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> multisocket processing configurations are possible with Kaveri.
> 
> hUMA is an evolution to ccNUMA which is used in modern Opterons. The feature to use ccNUMA through non-intergrated parts is still there as well.
> 
> Kaveri = (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses)
> Kaveri + Bonaire = (Unified Virtual Addresses)
> Kaveri + Kaveri + Kaveri = (Unified Virtual Addresses)
> 
> Kaveri_00 =>
> 1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_01
> 1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_02
> 
> Is completely possible but the operating system needs to support it.


Even if technically possible, sacrificing the bulk of Kaveri's I/O to get a relatively slow and high latency interconnect between them of them isn't quite what I had in mind.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> Even if technically possible, sacrificing the bulk of Kaveri's I/O to get a relatively slow and high latency interconnect between them of them isn't quite what I had in mind.


PCIe 3.0 latency is sub-100 nanoseconds and x8 can move 128 Gbit/s(bi-directional).


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> multisocket processing configurations are possible with Kaveri.
> 
> hUMA is an evolution to ccNUMA which is used in modern Opterons. The feature to use ccNUMA through non-intergrated parts is still there as well.
> 
> Kaveri (standalone) = (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses)
> Kaveri + Bonaire = (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses) + (Unified Virtual Addresses)
> Kaveri + Kaveri + Kaveri = (Unified Virtual Addresses to each other Kaveri but internally all Kaveri's have (Unified Physical and Virtual Addresses))
> 
> Kaveri_00 =>
> 1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_01
> 1 x PCIe x8 => Kaveri_02
> 
> Is completely possible but the operating system needs to support it.


Did they take dual socket support out of Win8? I know the pro variations of xp and 7 supported this.

beyond that.. i don't know of any non server OS that takes more then 2 sockets.


----------



## hagtek

What would a Kaveri multi socket solution offer that isn't currently available in some form or another in the current market?


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *hagtek*
> 
> What would a Kaveri multi socket solution offer that isn't currently available in some form or another in the current market?


HSA.

multiple HSA processors would be miles better then any GPGPU cards, low latency, high memory, scalability, power efficiency, low-profile (ie stacked in small racks or on children boards).

at the same time though, this is what the ARM opterons are for so I cant be sure if HSA is quite worth it yet, might have to wait for HSA support to pop up more at least in server applications, java for example is getting full HSA in 1.9.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> PCIe 3.0 latency is sub-100 nanoseconds and x8 can move 128 Gbit/s(bi-directional).


Still slower, with more latency, than 16-bit HT 3.1 and much slower than a 32-bit HT link or competing interconnects like QPI. A potentially bigger problem is sacrificing nearly all available I/O.

If it was both possible and worthwhile to have multi-socket FM2(+) platforms, we'd have them. Not even Berlin will be 2P+.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> multiple HSA processors would be miles better then any GPGPU cards, low latency, high memory, scalability, power efficiency, low-profile (ie stacked in small racks or on children boards).


There are plenty of GPGPU tasks that don't suffer greatly from not being HSA, and a higher end discrete GPU has far more ALUs and much more memory bandwidth available to it than any individual, or small cluster of, current HSA processors.

Also, pretty much none of the advantages you list would work without an extremely fast interconnect that Kaveri does not have.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> Still slower, with more latency, than 16-bit HT 3.1 and much slower than a 32-bit HT link or competing interconnects like QPI. A potentially bigger problem is sacrificing nearly all available I/O.


QPI, HT3.1, PEX3(on Kaveri) with all 1-byte/8-bit links

QPI(SB-EP) => (8 GHz * 8 bit * 2 bid) ÷ 8 bits => 16 GB/s bidirectional
HT3.1(C32/G34 Ops) => (6.4 GHz * 16 bits * 1 uni) ÷ 8 bits => 12.8 GB/s bidirectional
PEX3(Kaveri) => (8 GHz * 8 lanes * 2 bid) ÷ 8 bits => 16 GB/s bidirectional

PEX3 does not have;
More latency than current gen QPI/HT.
Less bandwidth than QPI/HT with almost similar pins required. (QPI and HT require about 30+ percent more pins for equivalent bandwidth to PEX3)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Blameless*
> 
> If it was both possible and worthwhile to have multi-socket FM2(+) platforms, we'd have them. Not even Berlin will be 2P+.


I'm not talking about multisocket FM2+, I'm talking about a PCIe add-on card.

FM2+ => Kaveri
PEX16_0 => Kaveri*
PEX8_0 => Kaveri*

Not
FM2P_0 => Kaveri
FM2P_1 => Kaveri
FM2P_2 => Kaveri
FM2P_3 => Kaveri

*With the PCIe method you could then connect the Kaveri's on the card with Oland/Bonaire/Hawaii/etc via the two PCIe x8 connections.
^ 12 Cores + 1536 ALUs (+ ≤5632 ALUs)


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> unfortunately FM2+ cant do multi-socket as it doesn't have the HT lanes available, or at least I don't think it does, the chip itself does however, but at this point I'm not sure what AMD might be doing about multi-socket APU platforms...
> 
> I think at this point I would be happy with the ASUS A88X-Pro, but, like you, I don't fancy the gold scheme...


Not for the desktop but there is always moonshot with their aquired interconnects which will be upgraded to Berlin/Kaveri later this year.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> i've been toying with the thought of multi apu configurations and the possibility of amd going that route.
> 
> in theory from a consumer point of view, it would make more sense for the high end platform to be multi apu
> 
> as to control the power aspect and compatibility issue we see in the Vishera thread alot. FX-8 chip fitting in to boards that just cannot handle them.
> 
> glad my shaky understanding of the HT/PEX lanes isn't too far off.
> 
> i'm not saying it wont take work. but i dont think it is out side the realm of possibilities.


A8-7600 is incredibly efficient at 3GHz so you could put 4 of those on a board and still only get a 140W tdp


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Not for the desktop but there is always moonshot with their aquired interconnects which will be upgraded to Berlin/Kaveri later this year.
> A8-7600 is incredibly efficient at 3GHz so you could put 4 of those on a board and still only get a 140W tdp


exactly why high-density servers can use these for great performance in many loads, but we'll just have to see where AMD can go with this, might be a bit of a wait for a later gen with some improvements first...


----------



## no1youknow

Really wanted a new steamroller fx gen


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *no1youknow*
> 
> Really wanted a new steamroller fx gen


An APU has more potential so I doubt we'll see another 4 module chip but it is possible so perhaps excavator will give us some love.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *no1youknow*
> 
> Really wanted a new steamroller fx gen
> 
> 
> 
> An APU has more potential so I doubt we'll see another 4 module chip but it is possible so perhaps excavator will give us some love.
Click to expand...

How I wish for an 8core APU. If L3 really is a waste of space, then it should be possible if removed right?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> How I wish for an 8core APU. If L3 really is a waste of space, then it should be possible if removed right?


Well L3 isn't a waste but in Piledriver it was actually using it made the whole process slower due to major design flaws. If they are not fixed yet it might aswell be removed and replaced with either extra modules or extra graphics blocks.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The L3$ would've been more effective had the K15 family been devoid of several of the design flaws present in the uarch. Check out Agner's Steamroller analyses here: Link 1 Link 2

It becomes more clear why Steamroller didn't meet the original IPC increase target of ~30%. They barely reached the figure they had on their own revised slides of 20%. There are still many bottlenecks in the design that hamstring the performance. My guess is that the engineers opted to focus moreso on the HSA aspects than going for raw IPC increase. The IPC increase offset the clockspeed reduction compared to previous-gen Richland.

We still hardly know much about Excavator, but hopefully the engineers can find the culprits of these bottlenecks and eliminate them. Either way, I don't expect much from Carrizo -- both on the CPU and GPU front. Best case scenario they increase the raw performance enough on the CPU side to once again offset the clock reductions. In fact, lower clocks and higher IPC is the way to go, since Steamroller v2 performs best at lower clocks (requiring less voltage and consuming less power than its predecessor at the same clocks). Due to the process node, it became painfully clear that AMD's original "longer pipeline, higher clocks" strategy fell flat with Kaveri.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The L3$ would've been more effective had the K15 family been devoid of several of the design flaws present in the uarch.


The 15h family architecture is actually the K10 architecture. 00h = K8, 10h = K9, 15h = K10.



If you go into the hole further you will find out also that the 10h family architecture was planned to be used till it hit 5 GHz. The sad part of 10h and 15h is that the primary people who made those designs are either retired or dead.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Due to the process node, it became painfully clear that AMD's original "longer pipeline, higher clocks" strategy fell flat with Kaveri.


The 15h architecture in Kaveri is actually smaller and tighter than the 15h in Trinity and Richland.

To the point where 15h 30h-3Fh and 15h 60h-6Fh could essentially be considered a different architecture. They went from a 15 stage pipeline to a 14+1 stage pipeline with Kaveri.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> An APU has more potential so I doubt we'll see another 4 module chip but it is possible so perhaps excavator will give us some love.


You are right you won't be seeing a non-disabled octo-core 15h die till at least 20nm/14nm.

40h-4Fh which is the successor to 00h(Zambezi) and 02h(Vishera/Centurion); has 16 cores in it's non-disabled form.


----------



## NaroonGTX

In some of my earlier posts, I used to call Bulldozer K10, since that's what some engineers called it. Athlon 64 and all of its successors up until Bulldozer were K8, internally. I'm pretty sure enthusiasts were the ones who saw the 10h and 15h, etc. names and just slapped the K in front of the number, which caused the discrepancies back in the day. AMD themselves used the K15 moniker recently to refer to Kaveri in an old cpu-z shot from last year of an eng-sample.


----------



## Paul17041993

I still have some K7 athlon and athlonMPs









before my FX-8150 I had an AthlonII 640, effectively a low power variant of the PhenomIIs without L3, t'was a HUGE upgrade to the old Pentium4 extreme I had before it in both single and multi-thread loads, K10 > bulldozer was pretty much the same for me (slightly faster per-core, but twice the core count).


----------



## sdlvx

The L3 is a massive waste of die space.

I'd be interested to see how excavator would perform without L3, and some combination of GCN cores and extra modules.

AMD should have just completely abandoned the single-thread race entirely, ditched the L3, and doubled the number of modules. Well, at least for an FX replacement. 8m/16c SR would have really disrupted things for a lot of people. And it would have been a lot of fun to see the AMD guys posting 8m/16c parts mauling Intels that cost twice as much in multithread and then watching the Intel guys find all the single thread benchmarks they can. It would have made for good forum watching.


----------



## heroxoot

So is there a profound reason 8mb of L3 takes so much space on the die? Is it just normally large or did they do it wrong? Intel CPU are smaller and they have a lot of L3 on some don't they? Like 6 - 8mb which is close or the same to the FX series.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So is there a profound reason 8mb of L3 takes so much space on the die? Is it just normally large or did they do it wrong? Intel CPU are smaller and they have a lot of L3 on some don't they? Like 6 - 8mb which is close or the same to the FX series.


A worse node and a bad read write architecture where the L3 decreases perf. I'm still baffled they kept it for so long. The L3 problems should be fixed we already saw some very nice improvements with Kaveri for L2 perf over Richland.

If excavator has HDL and is that giant doubled up monster along with 20nm maybe.
That would shake things up I like AMD's focus on power efficiency since this way they can scale across al segments and later next generatiom us the module stratigic to create our fx proc.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> So is there a profound reason 8mb of L3 takes so much space on the die? Is it just normally large or did they do it wrong? Intel CPU are smaller and they have a lot of L3 on some don't they? Like 6 - 8mb which is close or the same to the FX series.


Intel's modern chips use small L2 caches and big L3 caches. AMD uses big L2 caches and (on FX) big L3 caches. Even then, AMD's current caches and read/write performance leave much to be desired. Steamroller was a decent improvement over BD/PD in those regards, but could still use some work. L3 cache latency is absolutely abysmal on K15 so far, even worse than Phenom II, and far far behind Intel. That's why so many people call it worthless, because it pretty much is. I guess AMD knew they wouldn't be making anymore chips that weren't APU's, so they decided there was no point in fixing the L3$ performance.










L3$ takes up roughly half the die space on Zambezi & Vishera.


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Intel's modern chips use small L2 caches and big L3 caches. AMD uses big L2 caches and (on FX) big L3 caches. Even then, AMD's current caches and read/write performance leave much to be desired. Steamroller was a decent improvement over BD/PD in those regards, but could still use some work. L3 cache latency is absolutely abysmal on K15 so far, even worse than Phenom II, and far far behind Intel. That's why so many people call it worthless, because it pretty much is. I guess AMD knew they wouldn't be making anymore chips that weren't APU's, so they decided there was no point in fixing the L3$ performance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> L3$ takes up roughly half the die space on Zambezi & Vishera.


Just take out the L3 and replace it with 2 more modules or an IGPU... It's that easy right!!!?

...making processors is so easy, it's like building legos.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> Just take out the L3 and replace it with 2 more modules or an IGPU... It's that easy right!!!?
> 
> ...making processors is so easy, it's like building legos.


With AMD's module way of designing it will look like that yeah. But those blocks need internally a lot of work and position does matter.


----------



## Paul17041993

positioning for HSA is particularly very specific to layout, you need a very strong memory interconnect to give every unit multi-directional and balanced access to the memory controller, this is possibly a partial reason why the cores in the 7K APUs were a disappointment as they had to be crammed in such a way for it to all work ideally...

does the L3 get used by the GPU units too? that's ultimately where it would have a massive use as you store a buffer there that you then tell the GPU to process said buffer, instead of doing a copy-back to RAM to have it loaded to GPU cache, back again to RAM, then into CPU cache again. this is why the XBOne has the ESRAM as it allows a super-high-speed global cache for buffers and the sort.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I actually do believe EX will get a big boost in ST performance that will lead to more competitive desktop processors but those are an afterthought. AMD is now between a rock and a hard place. With intel enjoying such a big process lead I just can't see how they can deliver something to improve their server and laptop market share in any meaningful way. If AMD executes and Carrizo is here in 11 months we will get nice dual and quad cores with pretty good iGPU but that is a very limited product range. Efficient or not, at this point it doesn't matter how good APUs are for laptops, the market only buys intel. They bought them 2-3 years ago when they had abysmal graphics, they clearly won't stop now. And If they can't deliver something convincing for big server then there won't be any high end desktop product either.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I actually do believe EX will get a big boost in ST performance that will lead to more competitive desktop processors but those are an afterthought. AMD is now between a rock and a hard place. With intel enjoying such a big process lead I just can't see how they can deliver something to improve their server and laptop market share in any meaningful way. If AMD executes and Carrizo is here in 11 months we will get nice dual and quad cores with pretty good iGPU but that is a very limited product range. Efficient or not, at this point it doesn't matter how good APUs are for laptops, the market only buys intel. They bought them 2-3 years ago when they had abysmal graphics, they clearly won't stop now. And If they can't deliver something convincing for big server then there won't be any high end desktop product either.


But then you have to consider price, being the price OEMs pay for the parts. The APU saves a lot on this front and adds to the profit margin of the OEMs.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I actually do believe EX will get a big boost in ST performance that will lead to more competitive desktop processors but those are an afterthought. AMD is now between a rock and a hard place. With intel enjoying such a big process lead I just can't see how they can deliver something to improve their server and laptop market share in any meaningful way. If AMD executes and Carrizo is here in 11 months we will get nice dual and quad cores with pretty good iGPU but that is a very limited product range. Efficient or not, at this point it doesn't matter how good APUs are for laptops, the market only buys intel. They bought them 2-3 years ago when they had abysmal graphics, they clearly won't stop now. And If they can't deliver something convincing for big server then there won't be any high end desktop product either.


AMD should be scaling Jaguar up a little bit more for laptops. I really am happy with my A4 5000, but I think the quad core 1.5ghz Jaguar is the slowest Jaguar I would go with. If they could get it off bulk and onto something like 20nm SOI they'd have a real winner. I've been playing around with my A4-5000 and my friends Core i7 M Sandy Bridge. The best I can do with Jaguar compiler tricks is getting A4-5000 at 1.5ghz to be a little less than half the speed of i7 mobile which is averaging 2.55ghz with turbo.

So, realistically I could see 8 core Jaguar trading blows with a 4 core, hyperthreaded SB chip at around 3ghz if AMD could get the frequency up close to 2ghz. But the biggest elephant in the room about the whole thing is that A4-5000 is a 15w part and the i7 is a 45w part. So it's not even twice as fast yet the TDP is three times as high, and Intel has a habit of lying about TDP, so it might be even higher .

Which is why I'm not excited about AMD replacing cat cores with ARM, and I think it would be a big mistake. AMD has a lot of potential with these little chips, and if they could keep scaling them up in clock speed and core count, they'd have a really good chip on their hands.

But as far as mobile goes, I'm really surprised by how deceptive Intel marketing is with clock speed for mobile chips. The CPU model my friend has states a 2ghz stock frequency. I rendered on it for 7 minutes at a time 3 times in a row with barely a break between renders and it barely dropped below 2.4ghz and was mostly at 2.6 or 2.5ghz, with spurts to 2.7ghz.

They really pulled a fast one over everyone, comparing 2ghz Core 2 Duo that is actually 2ghz with 2ghz Sandy Bridge which is actually anywhere from 2.9ghz to 2.4ghz and then going "wow SB is only a 2ghz part but look at how much faster it is per clock!"


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> So it's not even twice as fast yet the TDP is three times as high, and Intel has a habit of lying about TDP, so it might be even higher


45w isn't really estimated power, it's effectively the long-term power limit for the chip (cpu and igpu) as far as i understand right now


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> I actually do believe EX will get a big boost in ST performance that will lead to more competitive desktop processors but those are an afterthought. AMD is now between a rock and a hard place. With intel enjoying such a big process lead I just can't see how they can deliver something to improve their server and laptop market share in any meaningful way. If AMD executes and Carrizo is here in 11 months we will get nice dual and quad cores with pretty good iGPU but that is a very limited product range. Efficient or not, at this point it doesn't matter how good APUs are for laptops, the market only buys intel. They bought them 2-3 years ago when they had abysmal graphics, they clearly won't stop now. And If they can't deliver something convincing for big server then there won't be any high end desktop product either.


We already can be certain that there won't be any AMD presence in the high-end anytime soon, not even with Excavator. The roadmaps already show that AMD is solely committed to APU's, and there are no server parts using SR or EX that have more than two modules. Inb4 anyone suggests multi-socket platforms, because Berlin and Toronto are only for 1P systems, and the APU's don't have any HyperTransport or similar tech in them to allow for multi-socket communication without abysmal latency. Plus the purpose of HSA is to eliminate latency and let the CPU communicate with the GPU's much faster than before, which a multi-socket approach would render totally moot.

It's not secret that Intel abused their spending power to "coerce" OEM's to not sell AMD-powered products, and to basically push the hell out of Intel products in order to boost their market share, even when AMD had the superior products. Granted, that was ages ago now, but that legacy was never left behind. What AMD needs to do is keep doing what they're doing right now -- focusing on HSA and innovation rather than trying to follow Intel. They need to really get on their marketing and increase brand awareness. The vast majority of average consumers don't even know who AMD are, let alone the fact that they exist.


----------



## heroxoot

And with that being said I feel its safe to upgrade my 8150 to an 8350 the next time a sale happens. I can justify <100 dollars on a 20% performance increase. Plus my 8150 caps out around 4.4ghz for OC.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> And with that being said I feel its safe to upgrade my 8150 to an 8350 the next time a sale happens. I can justify <100 dollars on a 20% performance increase. Plus my 8150 caps out around 4.4ghz for OC.


Certainly. Vishera overclocks to 4.5 with very little problem. It usually takes some work to go higher, but most of them will make it to 4.8 with good cooling and some extra voltage. A good water loop gets a lot of them to 5.0. Even at the stock 4.0, it should keep pace with, and often beat, your Bulldozer at 4.4. Vishera is a nice improvement over the original FX chips, very comparable to the improvement from Phenom I to Phenom II.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

I have mine at 22x for now with 1.3875v. Probably not Prime or IBT stable, but I never crash. And yet I do video rendering... anyone want to guess the other reason why I believe stress testing is pointless?


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> I have mine at 22x for now with 1.3875v. Probably not Prime or IBT stable, but I never crash. And yet I do video rendering... anyone want to guess the other reason why I believe stress testing is pointless?


When I run IBT on my cpu doing 4.5ghz even on the max voltage my board can do the graphics card will randomly kick off. Its not the cards fault, but I can do 4.4ghz on 1.4v without fail and run IBT fine. I mean the monitors go black and switch to sleep, so I am assuming the OC isn't stable and it crashed, even though all the fans and such are still on. I never gave it much try so I just figured 4.4 is my wall on this CPU. Seems like an average thing for many a 8150.

So yea, 8350 if I can get one for at least 100 or less sounds pretty good right?


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Sounds like PSU can't handle the stress and cuts the 12v rail power shutting off the GPU.


----------



## cpmee

Well, that OCZ ZX 850w gold has 70 amps on a single 12 volt rail, so it should be more than enough plus some. Of course its OCZ so it could be going bad, heh. (I havent had good experiences with OCZ stuff)


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cpmee*
> 
> Well, that OCZ ZX 850w gold has 70 amps on a single 12 volt rail, so it should be more than enough plus some. Of course its OCZ so it could be going bad, heh. (I havent had good experiences with OCZ stuff)


Sorry, forgot to quote 'heroxoot'. That's who my last post was directed at. Although, you cannot look at anything it says on the box. Doesn't matter if it's gold rated or has 1000W, if it's a piece of junk, it won't work. I do not know much about which PSU's to pick, if you want to you can look up 'shilka' and he has a link in his sig with a link to a thread about which PSU's are good.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *cpmee*
> 
> Well, that OCZ ZX 850w gold has 70 amps on a single 12 volt rail, so it should be more than enough plus some. Of course its OCZ so it could be going bad, heh. (I havent had good experiences with OCZ stuff)
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, forgot to quote 'heroxoot'. That's who my last post was directed at. Although, you cannot look at anything it says on the box. Doesn't matter if it's gold rated or has 1000W, if it's a piece of junk, it won't work. I do not know much about which PSU's to pick, if you want to you can look up 'shilka' and he has a link in his sig with a link to a thread about which PSU's are good.
Click to expand...

I think he was directing at me as well. It could be a faulty wire as sometimes if I wiggle the 24pin it will stop giving the board power. Gotta call OCZ and see if they can give me a replacement cable. But the 12v rail should have enough amps, considering it also did it on this crappy 6850 with no overclocks at all, and when the stress test is taking place the card is at idle clocks so its using no power realistically anyway.

I'd also like to add it will kick off with any voltage on 4.5ghz for whatever reason.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I think he was directing at me as well. It could be a faulty wire as sometimes if I wiggle the 24pin it will stop giving the board power. Gotta call OCZ and see if they can give me a replacement cable. But the 12v rail should have enough amps, considering it also did it on this crappy 6850 with no overclocks at all, and when the stress test is taking place the card is at idle clocks so its using no power realistically anyway.
> 
> I'd also like to add it will kick off with any voltage on 4.5ghz for whatever reason.


Seems like your PSU is actually pretty good. From a resident PSU guru 'shilka':
Quote:


> Now this series is mixed the *850 watts has decent voltage regulation and average ripple
> *
> The 1250 watts on the other hand has worse voltage regulation but much better ripple
> 
> _Overall i think this is a good series does has some small flaws but nothing major_
> 
> Some of the OCZ ZX units does have a problem with whining noise at higher loads so definitely not cool


He approves, but would be able to find something better,


----------



## heroxoot

Lucky me mine is completely silent even when I am playing a game with both high GPU and CPU load. IE. BF4. I can imagine a 7970 using 1.25v and a FX 8150 using 1.4v has to be pulling 500 - 600w together, not including USB and other devices, right? So yea, never heard a peep from it. My case also has a great PSU lift and filter so when I clean the dust there hardly is anything on the PSU its self. I love it.

So yea, my 8150 is crap at OCing, and I feel if I grabbed a 8350 on sale and just left it stock I'd get better performance still.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Lucky me mine is completely silent even when I am playing a game with both high GPU and CPU load. IE. BF4. I can imagine a 7970 using 1.25v and a FX 8150 using 1.4v has to be pulling 500 - 600w together, not including USB and other devices, right? So yea, never heard a peep from it. My case also has a great PSU lift and filter so when I clean the dust there hardly is anything on the PSU its self. I love it.
> 
> So yea, my 8150 is crap at OCing, and I feel if I grabbed a 8350 on sale and just left it stock I'd get better performance still.


You and your friends are completely off-topic here. The thread is steamroller NOT FX cpus.


----------



## TheReciever

Please keep the thread drama free guys.

Whats the best board for GPU farm [email protected]?


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *TheReciever*
> 
> Please keep the thread drama free guys.
> 
> Whats the best board for GPU farm [email protected]?


gigabyte UD7, AM3+ platform of course.

wait why you asking here...?


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> gigabyte UD7, AM3+ platform of course.
> 
> wait why you asking here...?


Was wondering the same thing.


----------



## TheReciever

Clearly all those knowledgeable of this platform are all here










but I guess its not welcome since it is off topic, i'll keep that in mind when I make my next inquiry.


----------



## PhilWrir

Lets swing it back around to discussing Steamroller guys

I dont mind some deviation, but when it starts to cause scuffles we need to remember what this thread is about, even if its an older thread


----------



## AcEsSalvation

I guess a good topic to start this thread back on track is:

How good is the GPU going to be with the mobile SR chips? The power consumption? Reason why I'm asking is I'm seeing a few issues with my laptop and would love to know if it would be a waste to get a return on this for a newer chip.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> I guess a good topic to start this thread back on track is:
> 
> How good is the GPU going to be with the mobile SR chips? The power consumption? Reason why I'm asking is I'm seeing a few issues with my laptop and would love to know if it would be a waste to get a return on this for a newer chip.




And if you remember or saw the original Kaveri benches the 45W was able to do 80% of the performance of the 95W. So yes Kaveri is gonna be great. Richland did well also. Got a friend that bought a new A6 Laptop and he says it is smooth and performs great. With 8.1 and he loves it.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Got a friend that bought a new A6 Laptop and he says it is smooth and performs great. With 8.1 and he loves it.


I love Win8 (but it is a touchscreen). I love the snappiness of it, removes some of the pain of a laptop. Only wish it had speedier RAM for better performance. My A8-5545m runs quite a few of my games, but if I can get a little more performance by getting a refund of this lappy... Cool. I also want SR to work for AMD. Aside from the 'monopoly' topic that always comes up, I just want both companies to keep pushing technology along.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> I guess a good topic to start this thread back on track is:
> 
> How good is the GPU going to be with the mobile SR chips? The power consumption? Reason why I'm asking is I'm seeing a few issues with my laptop and would love to know if it would be a waste to get a return on this for a newer chip.


I would expect them to be pretty decent, definitely should still be something better then any alternatives in the same power range, you just need to choose the APU for what you need it to do, if you wanted to play games on it a dedicated GPU pared with it can help even if you don't use crossfire as it would allow the CPU to run harder as the iGPU wouldn't be in use.

one main thing though is [any] APU likes dual-channel memory, so if the laptop has only one stick in the system you'll likely only get half the GPU performance you should, and CPU would be quite slow too.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Well, unfortunately with the Iris Pro IGP, Intel pretty much closed the gap between itself and AMD and once again AMD has nothing going for it but price.
http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-apu-a10-7850k-intel-i5-4570r-iris-pro-graphics-showdown/

If AMD really wants to keep ahead, those Steamroller/Kaveri APU's, better be one hell of a boost in arch and speed, otherwise people are going to once again think; "AMD budget build, nothing else to see here."


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Got a friend that bought a new A6 Laptop and he says it is smooth and performs great. With 8.1 and he loves it.
> 
> 
> 
> I love Win8 (but it is a touchscreen). I love the snappiness of it, removes some of the pain of a laptop. Only wish it had speedier RAM for better performance. My A8-5545m runs quite a few of my games, but if I can get a little more performance by getting a refund of this lappy... Cool. I also want SR to work for AMD. Aside from the 'monopoly' topic that always comes up, I just want both companies to keep pushing technology along.
Click to expand...

I use 8.1 on desktop and I think its fine as a desktop OS too. Regardless of it being made for the laptop and tablet market, it seems great.

So how long till we have laptops with the new APU in it? I'm holding off on a laptop till later this year. I'd love a quad core 7850k laptop version APU laptop for school and mid ranged gaming when I don't wanna sit in my room.

Maybe take the laptop out and play Ultra Street fighter 4 when it hits in August? A new A10 will hopefully be out by August right? Lets hope.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Well, unfortunately with the Iris Pro IGP, Intel pretty much closed the gap between itself and AMD and once again AMD has nothing going for it but price.
> http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-apu-a10-7850k-intel-i5-4570r-iris-pro-graphics-showdown/
> 
> If AMD really wants to keep ahead, those Steamroller/Kaveri APU's, better be one hell of a boost in arch and speed, otherwise people are going to once again think; "AMD budget build, nothing else to see here."


but can it do openCL2...?


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Well, unfortunately with the Iris Pro IGP, Intel pretty much closed the gap between itself and AMD and once again AMD has nothing going for it but price.
> http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-apu-a10-7850k-intel-i5-4570r-iris-pro-graphics-showdown/
> 
> If AMD really wants to keep ahead, those Steamroller/Kaveri APU's, better be one hell of a boost in arch and speed, otherwise people are going to once again think; "AMD budget build, nothing else to see here."


Actually that was with 14.1. 14.3 increases Kaveris performance quite a bit. And sorry, at that price Intel still loses.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Actually that was with 14.1. 14.3 increases Kaveris performance quite a bit. And sorry, at that price Intel still loses.


I'm not here to do fanboy-economics, I'm here for factual information I provided slides, you provided nothing but your word. Not to mention the laptop prices aren't that different between Intel and AMD based platforms and that's where the money for these IGP's are coming from. I've been out in the real world, most people aren't even aware of AMDs existence, let alone their advancements as a company.


----------



## Paul17041993

Id still prefer an APU over an i3, I rarely consider raw performance in that way, HSA is the deal for me as it simply takes the major drawback of GPGPU and completely removes it, I haven't seen anything yet if the intel alternates can use openCL 2.0 bufferless (HSA) or if the GPGPU perf is anything good, let alone if their drivers are anything reliable and bug-free compared to the predecessors.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> I'm not here to do fanboy-economics, I'm here for factual information I provided slides, you provided nothing but your word. Not to mention the laptop prices aren't that different between Intel and AMD based platforms and that's where the money for these IGP's are coming from. I've been out in the real world, most people aren't even aware of AMDs existence, let alone their advancements as a company.


Ok well here is 14.2:



So far no one has done a 14.3 with Kaveri, but when I have experience with such, my brother now has one, I can tell you the improvements are huge. None of which changes the fact that only a less-informed individual would choose that Irispro over a Kaveri being the huge price difference. And the simple fact that they are on par with one another even from your link, as bad as it was.

And where pray-tell did you compare a Kaveri laptop to an Intel Iris-pro laptop? This is steamroller thread and your sole purpose was to fanboy and guess what? Your ill attempt at superiority is so far off base and benign that all you managed was to waste energy displaying a really bad attempt.


----------



## deepor

That Iris Pro talk is stupid in my opinion. It is super expensive because of that second die with the large cache. Looking up an example for pricing, Intel seems to want $623 for an i7-4950HQ. It can't possibly do enough regarding its graphics performance to justify that price so comparing feels pointless.

*EDIT:* I now also checked the price of the i5-4570R with Iris Pro and it's $255 so there might be a point.


----------



## nitrubbb

Hi.

Does it matter if I get 1600mhz or 2133+mhz for 7850K when I am using dGPU anyway?


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> Hi.
> 
> Does it matter if I get 1600mhz or 2133+mhz for 7850K when I am using dGPU anyway?


Not really. You shouldn't use a 7850k if you're not going to use the iGPU though, unless you are already invested in one - something like an fx6300 would be a better choice


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> Not really. You shouldn't use a 7850k if you're not going to use the iGPU though, unless you are already invested in one - something like an fx6300 would be a better choice


Yep I already have it unfortunately.

Thanks for answering


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> Hi.
> 
> Does it matter if I get 1600mhz or 2133+mhz for 7850K when I am using dGPU anyway?


I'd get 2133mhz only because it can make use of it. There is no point to the 7850k unless you use the igpu. Other wise a 8350 + dedi gpu is better performance by far.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> Not really. You shouldn't use a 7850k if you're not going to use the iGPU though, unless you are already invested in one - something like an fx6300 would be a better choice


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> Yep I already have it unfortunately.
> 
> Thanks for answering


don't worry, I should have a use for that iGPU of yours soon enough









its a HSA processor, so don't confuse it as a "plain GPU".


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> don't worry, I should have a use for that iGPU of yours soon enough
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> its a HSA processor, so don't confuse it as a "plain GPU".


yeah for HSA accelerated programs im sure it will be awesome but I don't think it will be benefitial for games


----------



## NaroonGTX

Relevant link in regards to HSA's potential place in games.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> yeah for HSA accelerated programs im sure it will be awesome but I don't think it will be benefitial for games


ooohh trust me, games are likely where HSA can shine the most, your only risk is lack of these processors existing, but most GPGPU stuff in games already works reasonably well, a HSA processor just means that you not only now have a spare "GPU" you can use, but its bufferless and can now do tasks more then twice as fast due to virtually no latency.

some general examples of GPGU that will greatly benefit from HSA;
- physics
- AI
- particles (usually in shaders, but still can be accelerated to a point)
- sound (trueaudio adds to this possibility too)
- otherwise updating states of lots of objects or checking said states

other possibilities are things like encryption and compression for both file/object loading and networks, you can process heaps of packets or chunks of data in one hit with much greater efficiency then classic CPU if you code it right.


----------



## Durquavian

I get this feeling that HSA is making it into Mantle or will. Some things they stated early on were very reminiscent of HSA when they were speaking of what Mantle will bring.


----------



## maarten12100

Clearly if AMD wants to achieve it's aim of getting HSA out to the consumers they should make sure HSA versions of software get out ASAP.
They need to show the world that it can save a lot of power or can yield a lot of extra performance.

A think that worries me is the lack of HSA on the slides with Mullin and Beema they should've had it.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> A think that worries me is the lack of HSA on the slides with Mullin and Beema they should've had it.


Kabini and Temash already support HSA. It just doesn't support hUMA and the full profile.

Kabini/Temash, hQ and the base HSA Profile.
Beema/Mullins, hQ+hUMA(Windows only) and the base HSA profile.

Kaveri/Berlin, hQ+hUMA(All OSes) and the full HSA profile.
Carrizo/Torronto, " " " "


----------



## nitrubbb

okay you've convinced me to stay with 7850K


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> okay you've convinced me to stay with 7850K


I am almost envious of the 7850k and I have a 4.8ghz 8350. Yeah sure for now mine is stronger, but as HSA gets implemented that 7850 is gonna blow me away.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> I am almost envious of the 7850k and I have a 4.8ghz 8350. Yeah sure for now mine is stronger, but as HSA gets implemented that 7850 is gonna blow me away.


That beiNg said ot should blow everything away as time progresses.


----------



## EaquitasAbsum

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Ok well here is 14.2:
> 
> 
> 
> So far no one has done a 14.3 with Kaveri, but when I have experience with such, my brother now has one, I can tell you the improvements are huge. None of which changes the fact that only a less-informed individual would choose that Irispro over a Kaveri being the huge price difference. And the simple fact that they are on par with one another even from your link, as bad as it was.
> 
> And where pray-tell did you compare a Kaveri laptop to an Intel Iris-pro laptop? This is steamroller thread and your sole purpose was to fanboy and guess what? Your ill attempt at superiority is so far off base and benign that all you managed was to waste energy displaying a really bad attempt.


Man it's really funny being called a fanboy by a fanboy...

An ultrabook is an ultrabook my friend, no matter what platform, AMD or Intel, you are looking at the same price margin. Plus, I own both AMD and Intel rigs, so my "attempt at superiority" is really just your feelings of inferiority.

You're correct about one thing though, this is a Steamroller thread, which means mentioning the CPUs and IGPs that AMD will have to compete against is irrelevant right? Right, keep up your amazing logic their bud and keep on using your pride instead of you head to make purchases.


----------



## Durquavian

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Man it's really funny being called a fanboy by a fanboy...
> 
> An ultrabook is an ultrabook my friend, no matter what platform, AMD or Intel, you are looking at the same price margin. Plus, I own both AMD and Intel rigs, so my "attempt at superiority" is really just your feelings of inferiority.
> 
> You're correct about one thing though, this is a Steamroller thread, which means mentioning the CPUs and IGPs that AMD will have to compete against is irrelevant right? Right, keep up your amazing logic their bud and keep on using your pride instead of you head to make purchases.


No your tone is the issue. It wasn't to have a valid debate it was to flame. And steamroller does not necessitate iGPU use, that only came in when Kaveri has it, but the Athlons do not so only half the story.

I reluctantly decided before not to post this graph but seeing how you seem eager to debate further:




One point to make is that these are low res so more emphasis on CPUs. Yet the biggest correlation here is a simple fact that Intel GPUs generally have GPU/FPS graphs like these. Granted this isn't the Irispro but not likely to change. Neither of these Intels make for a playable game, despite their general prowess in CPUs in bechmarks that are low res. Most sites only show min/max/avg and that doesn't tell the whole story as you see above.

Again Intel has absolutely nothing that AMD needs worry about when it comes to iGPU.


----------



## Paul17041993

when you have two separate dies it just becomes CPU + dGPU and there's no point trying to compare it to a HSA processor unless its unified in some way and has the instructions required to handle pointer and reference style data transmission between the units. even then, how fast is the interconnect...?

ok so apparently the 2nd die is just L4 cache, so unless you have explicit control over said cache unit it still relies solely on buffer copies...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Man it's really funny being called a fanboy by a fanboy...
> 
> An ultrabook is an ultrabook my friend, no matter what platform, AMD or Intel, you are looking at the same price margin. Plus, I own both AMD and Intel rigs, so my "attempt at superiority" is really just your feelings of inferiority.
> 
> You're correct about one thing though, this is a Steamroller thread, which means mentioning the CPUs and IGPs that AMD will have to compete against is irrelevant right? Right, keep up your amazing logic their bud and keep on using your pride instead of you head to make purchases.


For your information intel owns the ultrabook branding.
Quote:


> Ultrabook is a specification and trademarked brand by Intel for a class of high-end subnotebooks


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Durquavian*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *EaquitasAbsum*
> 
> Man it's really funny being called a fanboy by a fanboy...
> 
> An ultrabook is an ultrabook my friend, no matter what platform, AMD or Intel, you are looking at the same price margin. Plus, I own both AMD and Intel rigs, so my "attempt at superiority" is really just your feelings of inferiority.
> 
> You're correct about one thing though, this is a Steamroller thread, which means mentioning the CPUs and IGPs that AMD will have to compete against is irrelevant right? Right, keep up your amazing logic their bud and keep on using your pride instead of you head to make purchases.
> 
> 
> 
> No your tone is the issue. It wasn't to have a valid debate it was to flame. And steamroller does not necessitate iGPU use, that only came in when Kaveri has it, but the Athlons do not so only half the story.
> 
> I reluctantly decided before not to post this graph but seeing how you seem eager to debate further:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One point to make is that these are low res so more emphasis on CPUs. Yet the biggest correlation here is a simple fact that Intel GPUs generally have GPU/FPS graphs like these. Granted this isn't the Irispro but not likely to change. Neither of these Intels make for a playable game, despite their general prowess in CPUs in bechmarks that are low res. Most sites only show min/max/avg and that doesn't tell the whole story as you see above.
> 
> Again Intel has absolutely nothing that AMD needs worry about when it comes to iGPU.
Click to expand...

I don't think people realize it, but Intel video drivers are broken beyond belief. It's very common to read reviews that cover Intel iGPU and to just have games that flat out crash when trying to play them. That, or there's massive graphical issues.

Intel drivers are absolutely horrific, significantly degraded image quality, horrible frame times, games that don't work, etc. It's why I have an A4-5000 APU instead of an i3 (well, the price too). People seem to forget about that though and just want to post


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I don't think people realize it, but Intel video drivers are broken beyond belief. It's very common to read reviews that cover Intel iGPU and to just have games that flat out crash when trying to play them. That, or there's massive graphical issues.
> 
> Intel drivers are absolutely horrific, significantly degraded image quality, horrible frame times, games that don't work, etc. It's why I have an A4-5000 APU instead of an i3 (well, the price too). People seem to forget about that though and just want to post


never have intel ever made drivers that work properly for... anything... I'm not even joking, Ive had enough strife with intel network controllers (both high-end wifi and server-class ethernet), motherboard drivers, graphics, nothing ever seems to work correctly and I just have to leave them on whatever windows or linux provides by itself to have something functional, even then, I still have to do things like disable power saving to stop BSODs or hardlocks.

this is generally why I prefer AMD (and other brands for networking etc) nowadays, it all just works correctly...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I don't think people realize it, but Intel video drivers are broken beyond belief. It's very common to read reviews that cover Intel iGPU and to just have games that flat out crash when trying to play them. That, or there's massive graphical issues.
> 
> Intel drivers are absolutely horrific, significantly degraded image quality, horrible frame times, games that don't work, etc. It's why I have an A4-5000 APU instead of an i3 (well, the price too). People seem to forget about that though and just want to post


Crashes glitches and horrible stuttering.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Crashes glitches and horrible stuttering.


don't forget tearing and desktop artifacts









think that's enough though on that topic, lets get back to AMD related


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> For your information intel owns the ultrabook branding.


Yes, only Intel systems can bear the name "Ultrabook." You can make an AMD equivalent, using an APU, but you can't call it an Ultrabook.


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Yes, only Intel systems can bear the name "Ultrabook." You can make an AMD equivalent, using an APU, but you can't call it an Ultrabook.


hp called their amd equivalents "sleek books" lol.


----------



## ronal

When is the non apu steamroller cpu being released?


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ronal*
> 
> When is the non apu steamroller cpu being released?


Never, we may see another FX chip with excavator. Only if one is created for the server market and brought over to the consumer desktop. Follow the server roapmaps for a early indication.


----------



## jsc1973

If we see a non-APU Steamroller chip, it will probably just be an Athlon chip, harvested from Kaveri chips with flaws in the GPU section. It's very unlikely there will ever be an FX chip released on the Steamroller core. As mentioned earlier, we may get another FX on the Excavator core--but it won't be on Socket AM3+.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ronal*
> 
> When is the non apu steamroller cpu being released?


There will be Steamroller-based Athlons released later this year, however they will simply be die-harvested A10's with the GPU perma-disabled. There won't be any FX chips based on Steamroller, and not likely not Excavator either. AM3+ isn't gonna get any new chips, and there won't be an AM4 socket to succeed it.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ronal*
> 
> When is the non apu steamroller cpu being released?


It will be retail available between; October 2014 and January 2015. It will require a new motherboard because it will not be on a PGA board. It will also need four DDR4 memory DIMMs to max out each of the four channels.

The cost will be dependent on Haswell-E's performance against it. So hope single threaded performance is the cost variable if you want it cheap.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It will be retail available between; October 2014 and January 2015. It will require a new motherboard because it will not be on a PGA board. It will also need four DDR4 memory DIMMs to max out each of the four channels.
> 
> The cost will be dependent on Haswell-E's performance against it. So hope single threaded performance is the cost variable if you want it cheap.


isn't excavator the one getting the DDR4 controller...? otherwise I'm not expecting a non-APU entirely except for server parts, even if the iGPU is only small and basic coupled with large CPU.

Id even have to question the point of an athlon in this gen, seeing as its using GCN I doubt there would be bad enough bins to be worth resale without the entire iGPU unless you specifically manufactured the silicon without it...


----------



## NaroonGTX

The roadmaps have already shown us what we'll get, and there's no successor to the high-core count server dies. Warsaw is it, according to the maps. Nothing but APU's, even on the server. There will be server CPU's based on Steamroller and Excavator, but they are the same as the Athlons that we get -- just the APU's with the iGPU disabled.

And yes, Steamroller has no DDR4 controller, so I'm not sure how Seronx came up with that one, lol.


----------



## Seronx

@NaroonGTX;
The roadmaps don't show everything.

K15.4, 15h architecture 40h-4Fh is a thing and it is listed in the Software Optimization guide.

Steamroller = 40h
Excavator = 45h

Centurion (FX) and Warsaw (Opteron) are Piledriver stopgaps since Steamroller didn't add server features. AMD will only have these architectures in 2015;
Pirate Islands GPUs (GCN2)
Excavator CPUs/APUs (15h / 45h-4Fh and 60h-6Fh)
Puma APUs (16h / 30h-3Fh)
- Nolan possibly with Leopard(Non-16h) cores later in 2015.

Carrizo APU/SoC and this Classy(Classified) CPU. Both use cHT/PCIe3 for discrete hUMA.


----------



## Papadope

I want to believe, but I have more doubts than I used to. Not towards you Seronx, but towards the market. I just think AMD's budget is very limited atm and it makes sense to invest that budget in areas where AMD doesn't compete directly with Intel. That being said though, I would be ecstatic if we got some new FX chips. They would have to be 5 modules+ though to offer a significant performance increase due to the reduced clocks on 28nm bulk. Honestly, I'd rather see them skip Steamroller FX and release excavator FX in 2015 with DDR4. That would be something a more significant upgrade.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I want to believe, but I have more doubts than I used to. Not towards you Seronx, but towards the market. I just think AMD's budget is very limited atm and it makes sense to invest that budget in areas where AMD doesn't compete directly with Intel.


AMD doesn't need to compete with Intel, they are aiming for different logical thought patterns in how to compute.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> That being said though, I would be ecstatic if we got some new FX chips. They would have to be 5 modules+ though to offer a significant performance increase due to the reduced clocks on 28nm bulk.


Carrizo and Classy should be on 20nm LPM since GF28A is meant to be a shuttle process down to 20nm. AMD's node jumping is a little weird. The FX part will have 8 modules on one die as far as I know.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Honestly, I'd rather see them skip Steamroller FX and release excavator FX in 2015 with DDR4. That would be something a more significant upgrade.


Steamroller added no server related improvements so it was most likely skipped for Excavator. Which had server related improvements.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Carrizo and Classy should be on 20nm LPM since GF28A is meant to be a shuttle process down to 20nm. AMD's node jumping is a little weird. The FX part will have 8 modules on one die as far as I know.


It sure is, It's getting hard to keep up. It seems like no one really knows which node AMD is going to next but no matter what they choose they are all designed for low power mobile. Is tdp a limiting factor on a low power mobile node or is it clock speed or both?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> It sure is, It's getting hard to keep up. It seems like no one really knows which node AMD is going to next but no matter what they choose they are all designed for low power mobile. Is tdp a limiting factor on a low power mobile node or is it clock speed or both?


20nm LPM is Low Power Manufacturing, it means that it is cheap and less costly to manufacture. It doesn't mean that it is for Low Power Mobile parts.

GlobalFoundries currently uses the most confusing node names:
20nm LPM, to mark our switch to Gate Last, we will emphasis how much less power we need.
14nm XM, to mark our switch to FinFETs, we will emphasis how much electromigration effects FinFET Devices.

Gate Last nodes requires less power to be manufactured in comparison to Gate First nodes.
FinFETs have extremely mobile electron/ions which can destroy the functionality of the device.

Ya, bad names for nodes are the win. 20nm-LPM will probably have higher clock rates than 22nm FinFETs offered to Intel.

Just to point out that; the 22nm SOI node and the 20nm LPM node are only 10% away from each other in performance.

20nm LPM should be called High Performance, Low Cost. 20nm HPC, ya a much better name.


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> 20nm LPM is Low Power Manufacturing, it means that it is cheap and less costly to manufacture. It doesn't mean that it is for Low Power Mobile parts.
> 
> GlobalFoundries currently the most confusing node names:
> 20nm LPM, to mark our switch to Gate Last, we will emphasis how much less power we need.
> 14nm XM, to mark our switch to FinFETs, we will emphasis how much electromigration effects FinFET Devices.
> 
> Gate Last nodes requires less power to be manufacture in comparison to Gate First nodes.
> FinFETs have extremely mobile electron/ions which can destroy the functionality of the device.
> 
> Ya, bad names for nodes are the win. 20nm-LPM will probably have higher clock rates than 22nm FinFETs offered to Intel.


Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the info. Do you know the main differences between 20nm-LPM (Low-Power Manufacturing) and 20nm-SHP (Super High Performance)? Both were being developed at the same time before 20nm-SHP was cancelled. It's rumored Excavator was originally going to release on 20nm-SHP.

The good news is 20nm-LPM is suppose to be SOI. That hasn't changed has it?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> The good news is 20nm-LPM is suppose to be SOI. That hasn't changed has it?


20nm LPM is Gate Last(Replacement Metal Gate) Bulk like TSMC's 20nm SoC.

AMD has a;

GF28A to GF20LPM shuttle.

AMD also has a;

GF20LPM to and from TSMC20SOC shuttle as well.

Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One has three planned shuttles.

TSMC28xxx -> GF28A -> GF20LPM -> TSMC20SOC.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> @NaroonGTX;
> 
> K15.4, 15h architecture 40h-4Fh is a thing and it is listed in the Software Optimization guide.


Yeah, the guide is available for download at AMD official site, it did raise a few eyebrows 3 months ago. It is feasible but for it to exist a new platform must be introduced so we should be keeping an eye for leaks from motherboard vendors etc. I still have serious doubts though.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *ronal*
> 
> When is the non apu steamroller cpu being released?
> 
> 
> 
> Never, we may see another FX chip with excavator. Only if one is created for the server market and brought over to the consumer desktop. Follow the server roapmaps for a early indication.
Click to expand...

Please don't appeal to the past like that. Just because AMD has traditionally brought over server chips to desktop, doesn't mean they always will.

AMD's server share is absolutely horrible. Meanwhile, DIY gaming market is taking off like crazy. So is HPC. It doesn't make sense for AMD to continue to move big x86 cores from server to desktop anymore. I'm expecting either a platform designed specifically around gaming or a platform which is designed for HPC and then is transfered over to desktop. The server to desktop transitioning of products should be dead, and if it isn't, I'll be amazed.

But I don't take that as proof that AMD is done with big cores for HEDT. It just means that they're doing it differently. HPC and DIY gaming is too strong of a market. AMD could also hit up workstations and that sort of market as well, though I hear workstations aren't doing so well.

Then again, I don't now what kind of workstations those surveys are talking about. I'm thinking more along the lines of CAD, 3d modelling, engineering, etc that require lots of computer power and where HSA would really, really shine.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I want to believe, but I have more doubts than I used to. Not towards you Seronx, but towards the market. I just think AMD's budget is very limited atm and it makes sense to invest that budget in areas where AMD doesn't compete directly with Intel. That being said though, I would be ecstatic if we got some new FX chips. They would have to be 5 modules+ though to offer a significant performance increase due to the reduced clocks on 28nm bulk. Honestly, I'd rather see them skip Steamroller FX and release excavator FX in 2015 with DDR4. That would be something a more significant upgrade.


Which is why I am personally fond of AMD going for HPC or Workstation and translating that platform to HEDT. HSA will give AMD a massive advantage over Intel and Nvidia in raw performance. If AMD can get HSA working on a larger scale than a single APU (either multiple APUs sharing memory or dCPU and dGPU working together) with HSA, Nvida and Intel won't be able to compete. All it would take is one big partner, like Autodesk or Adobe, and it'd be over. No amount of single thread or cores in a traditional system would be able to make up for it.

AMD could then just take whatever is left and sell it as HEDT parts.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Carrizo and Classy should be on 20nm LPM since GF28A is meant to be a shuttle process down to 20nm. AMD's node jumping is a little weird. The FX part will have 8 modules on one die as far as I know.
> 
> 
> 
> It sure is, It's getting hard to keep up. It seems like no one really knows which node AMD is going to next but no matter what they choose they are all designed for low power mobile. Is tdp a limiting factor on a low power mobile node or is it clock speed or both?
Click to expand...

We do know that AMD is only committed to bulk at 28nm. There's a video floating around the internet somewhere where someone is interviewing someone from AMD and constantly asking them about bulk and SOI beyond 28nm and the AMD basically just goes "we're using 28nm bulk" and writes off everything after that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> @NaroonGTX;
> 
> K15.4, 15h architecture 40h-4Fh is a thing and it is listed in the Software Optimization guide.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, the guide is available for download at AMD official site, it did raise a few eyebrows 3 months ago. It is feasible but for it to exist a new platform must be introduced so we should be keeping an eye for leaks from motherboard vendors etc. I still have serious doubts though.
Click to expand...

I just think of Hawaii release. It was a giant secret and it blindsided a lot of people. Nvidia is still caught with their pants down and they won't have an answer to R9 295 x2. AMD has at least proved that they are capable of keeping a huge secret for a long time, and they are still capable of being very competitive with their old competition.

However I don't think we can take AMD roadmaps at face value anymore. Remember all those roadmap leaks saying everything was stable throughout 2013 with GPUs? And remember how everyone was disappointed? And then remember how 290x was released and made Titan look like a clown in 2013?

I'm just taking what AMD showed us with Hawaii:

1. If they have a good product, they're not going to tell us about it
2. They aren't afraid of not putting things on roadmaps to keep secrets
3. They want to be competitive in high end things (like fighting against Titan and Titan-Z)

Also, stop and consider the purpose of HSA and the types of problems it solves. And then ask yourself if those types of problems are things that would really, really benefit from a more powerful solution than a 65w Carrizo APU. Now ask yourself if that's AMD's plans for the next several years. 65w APUs and HSA? To replace 500w graphics cards? Stop and ask yourself how absurd that sounds...


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I just think of Hawaii release. It was a giant secret and it blindsided a lot of people. Nvidia is still caught with their pants down and they won't have an answer to R9 295 x2. AMD has at least proved that they are capable of keeping a huge secret for a long time, and they are still capable of being very competitive with their old competition.
> 
> However I don't think we can take AMD roadmaps at face value anymore. Remember all those roadmap leaks saying everything was stable throughout 2013 with GPUs? And remember how everyone was disappointed? And then remember how 290x was released and made Titan look like a clown in 2013?
> 
> I'm just taking what AMD showed us with Hawaii:
> 
> 1. If they have a good product, they're not going to tell us about it
> 2. They aren't afraid of not putting things on roadmaps to keep secrets
> 3. They want to be competitive in high end things (like fighting against Titan and Titan-Z)
> 
> Also, stop and consider the purpose of HSA and the types of problems it solves. And then ask yourself if those types of problems are things that would really, really benefit from a more powerful solution than a 65w Carrizo APU. Now ask yourself if that's AMD's plans for the next several years. 65w APUs and HSA? To replace 500w graphics cards? Stop and ask yourself how absurd that sounds...


This is definitely true, but AMD's GPU division has been in a much better shape than there CPU division for a long time. They can compete with a company like Nvidia much easier than they can compete with the giant that is Intel. It's not that surprising that a high end part came out of nowhere for a division that has been executing and delivering high performance products for years now. The difference is for the CPU division to do it, it would be like my uncle pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and he's no magician.









Actually I should rephrase, I could definitely see the CPU division doing something like this. However, I don't see it being as big or as game changing as something like the 290X. I hope I am wrong though, I would really like to see AMD have a cpu that could compete with an i5 on all levels and then have the added bonus of HSA.


----------



## heroxoot

Its incredibly upsetting how AMD just keeps on punching nvidia while their CPU get slapped around like the weird kid on the playground by Intel. Every PC in my house is AMD. 2 Athlon II x4, 2 Phenom II x4, 1 8150, 1 4100, 1 6200.

Many like me support them like this, but its really starting to feel vein. If they don't put out something good or at least make a mention for desktop soon, I may have to go Intel for my next upgrade. I was debating an 8350 since my board can take it, but I'm not sure anymore.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Its incredibly upsetting how AMD just keeps on punching nvidia while their CPU get slapped around like the weird kid on the playground by Intel.


I guess there just isn't enough of a *need* for stupid fast CPUs these days, anything intensive is done on GPUs now, leaving CPUs left to just handle I/O and large amounts of active data, of which in-hardware HSA just means the CPU nolonger has to package and stream data to GPU space, GPU can just access the data it needs itself.

I wonder how many people know of openGL's context sharing that's already very similar to openCL2.0...
(ie; you can use multiple GPUs etc with shared memory, provided the driver has it enabled)


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Its incredibly upsetting how AMD just keeps on punching nvidia while their CPU get slapped around like the weird kid on the playground by Intel. Every PC in my house is AMD. 2 Athlon II x4, 2 Phenom II x4, 1 8150, 1 4100, 1 6200.
> 
> Many like me support them like this, but its really starting to feel vein. If they don't put out something good or at least make a mention for desktop soon, I may have to go Intel for my next upgrade. I was debating an 8350 since my board can take it, but I'm not sure anymore.


Killer 2014-2015 cpu = maybe competitive for performance, instead of multithreaded value

2012 CPU priced between i3 and i5 = much harder to sell to someone who wants to wreck everything CPU-limited that they come across


----------



## nitrubbb

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Its incredibly upsetting how AMD just keeps on punching nvidia while their CPU get slapped around like the weird kid on the playground by Intel. Every PC in my house is AMD. 2 Athlon II x4, 2 Phenom II x4, 1 8150, 1 4100, 1 6200.
> 
> Many like me support them like this, but its really starting to feel vein. If they don't put out something good or at least make a mention for desktop soon, I may have to go Intel for my next upgrade. I was debating an 8350 since my board can take it, but I'm not sure anymore.


Yeah I felt the same, then for the fun of it I took a look at AMD/intel/nvidia market caps


----------



## Seronx

Everyone has been had!



The Steamroller Leak was actually indeed truthful in some respects. The image above shows that the imgur/discus was indeed quite accurate.

Kaveri / KV-A0 and KV-A1 dark secret is;
EVERYTHING IS DISABLED!

From the 2013 slides, 1050 GFlops were stated but they are not used!

Desktop KV-B0:
CPU: 16 FMACs * 4 Cores * 2 GHz => ~128
GPU: 1024 ALUs * 2 FMA * 0.45 GHz => ~921.6

--
Tahiti's CU: ~5.5 mm²
Hawaii's CU: ~4.9 mm²
Pitcairn's CU: ~4.5 mm²

Everyone failed to notice that apparently the CUs for Kaveri were ~7.1 mm². For a node that is *DENSER* than Gate Last, it is less dense than Gate Last. This aroused my suspicion that something was awry. It took me three days but I finally uncovered it, 2.41 billion transistors are to dense to be less dense than Gate Last.

So I'll tell you...
Kaveri has 2 x 256-bit Flex FMACs and 1 x 256-bit Flex MMX/Shuffle.

Kaveri has 4 ALUs and 4 AGUs.

Kaveri has two fetch units that apparently can service both picks. (Two cycles per fetch was pretty suspicious)

Kaveri has a 16 CU GPU on die.

Luckily AMD was smart enough to disable the units to give off higher clocks to achieve near the same effect.


----------



## nitrubbb

what does this mean?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> what does this mean?


There was an issue with KV-A0 that didn't allow everything to work properly. Instead of waiting for a fix AMD simply disabled the problem parts which lead to KV-A1. This also allowed for faster time to market while they can always release KV-B0 later which had the fix.

Think about the 480 GTX and 580 GTX timeline. 480 GTX had a BEOL issue which didn't allow 1/8 of the GPU to work. 580 GTX was later released with the fixed BEOL. I assume the same thing happened with Kaveri but at a much larger scale. Instead of scraping the project or waste time developing the fix. AMD disabled pretty much everything till it worked properly, making Kaveri seem to be below expectations. When it was actually *BETTER* than anyone's expectations.

- Thanks IDC -


----------



## nitrubbb

so there is a chance of a A10-7870 or something before carizzo?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> so there is a chance of a A10-7870 or something before carizzo?


So far KV-B0 has only been confirmed in the mobile/embedded space.

A10-78x0M with R9 G3xx/G2xx graphics.

If KV-B0 comes out for desktops it could be A10-8870K. With Carrizo being A10-9880K, but I think with Carrizo we will get a new moniker.

FX/Opteron 40h-4Fh and Carrizo 60h-6Fh, will bear a unified moniker. (When I state will, I mean I think heavily that AMD will use a unified moniker)

FX for FX.
P for Opteron.
A for Accelerated.

FX16 - 170
P16 - 170
A10 - 170

Something like this^.

For those wondering, if I am right 28nm SHP is 1/8th node from 22nm SOI (IBM) and 1/4th node from 20nm LPM (CPA). The node is super dense for what AMD got. It's not as dense as 22nm SOI but it is very close to it.


----------



## sdlvx

So basically, you're claiming that AMD released Kaveri on desktop first to offload junk chips it can't do much with and we're going to get a supercharged mobile Kaveri?

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-A10-Series%20A10-7850K.html

Kaveri we have now is KV-A1. I always thought KV-A series were meant for an abandoned process.

Well, maybe it is. We have a SteamrollerB that's talked about but I don't think that's the stepping it's referring to as I see things in google telling me desktop Kaveri is SteamrollerB but it has KV-A1 stepping.

So what exactly is desktop Kaveri? A gimped version of a backup plan?

We have SteamrollerB stepping A1. And you're saying there's going to be a SteamrollerB B0 or B1 or something?

If that's true then Steamroller has one god awful secret history behind it. Maybe that has more to do with why we have no Steamroller FX class chips? Things went downhill with Steamroller A, switched to Steamroller B, and then found A0 and A1 had problems? So AMD just salvaged what they could for the time being and are postponing everything? When a chip goes wrong, you want the smallest dies possible, which could explain 2m/4c limit for Steamroller so far.

So really we might actually end up with a Steamroller FX class CPU some time once they get things sorted out? But I'd assume they'd want a new platform for that which more aligned with their HSA goals and was more competitive with Intel's offerings than AM3+ and 990FX chipset?

I think the biggest piece of evidence against this is that AMD historically has never been able to keep secrets like completely screw ups like this hidden. But then again they'd start bragging about things and talking about they have a superior product and they haven't done that with Kabini, 290x, 295x2, etc.

Your theory you're putting forth at least might provide some evidence as to why we have SteamrollerB instead of Steamroller and why we only have a limited Steamroller lineup.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> So basically, you're claiming that AMD released Kaveri on desktop first to offload junk chips it can't do much with and we're going to get a supercharged mobile Kaveri?


KV-A0 was "supercharged" but it had broken pieces. While AMD implements a fix and later releases KV-B0. AMD decided to come out with KV-A1 which instead of an IPC increase had a clock rate increase.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Bulldozer/AMD-A10-Series%20A10-7850K.html
> 
> Kaveri we have now is KV-A1. I always thought KV-A series were meant for an abandoned process.
> 
> Well, maybe it is. We have a SteamrollerB that's talked about but I don't think that's the stepping it's referring to as I see things in google telling me desktop Kaveri is SteamrollerB but it has KV-A1 stepping.
> 
> So what exactly is desktop Kaveri? A gimped version of a backup plan?


All versions of Kaveri after KV-A0 and before KV-B0 are gimped. The launch of KV-A1 is meant to match their time to market requirements.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> We have SteamrollerB stepping A1. And you're saying there's going to be a SteamrollerB B0 or B1 or something?


We will have KV-B0 on the mobile front, it should be out by the back to school season.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> If that's true then Steamroller has one god awful secret history behind it. Maybe that has more to do with why we have no Steamroller FX class chips? Things went downhill with Steamroller A, switched to Steamroller B, and then found A0 and A1 had problems? So AMD just salvaged what they could for the time being and are postponing everything? When a chip goes wrong, you want the smallest dies possible, which could explain 2m/4c limit for Steamroller so far.
> 
> So really we might actually end up with a Steamroller FX class CPU some time once they get things sorted out? But I'd assume they'd want a new platform for that which more aligned with their HSA goals and was more competitive with Intel's offerings than AM3+ and 990FX chipset?
> 
> I think the biggest piece of evidence against this is that AMD historically has never been able to keep secrets like completely screw ups like this hidden. But then again they'd start bragging about things and talking about they have a superior product and they haven't done that with Kabini, 290x, 295x2, etc.
> 
> Your theory you're putting forth at least might provide some evidence as to why we have SteamrollerB instead of Steamroller and why we only have a limited Steamroller lineup.


SteamrollerA was not competitive to the market, SteamrollerB gimped though gives off the same performance as SteamrollerA. I think if Intel launched Broadwell with better than graphics of KV-A1, AMD would rush to launch KV-B0, which has double the GPU resources. Since SteamrollerB is meant to compete with Haswell. Since, Haswell hasn't launched yet in the server market, AMD could then wait for it then launch a fully active SteamrollerB core server/enthusiast SKU..

So the FX-Opteron is either on 28nm-SHP or some node below it.

----
Where SteamrollerB was an increase in parallel instructions executed, IPC. (Better Parallelization)
Excavator on 20nm should be an increase in clock rate and instruction set extensions. (Better Performance)

Which leads to doubt should FX/Opteron for 40h-4Fh be SteamrollerB(28nm) or Excavator(20nm). I think it could be both since it makes since but the die size is pretty big.

30 mm² * 8 => 240mm² * 2 (To include uncore and L3) => 480 mm²

With the shrink to Excavator, it should be ~200 mm² for 14-nm FDSOI and or ~300 mm² for 20nm-LPM.


----------



## monstercameron

wait so you are claiming that half the chip is disabled?


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *monstercameron*
> 
> wait so you are claiming that half the chip is disabled?


Quote:


> According to Agner, " Two of the pipes have all the integer execution units while the other two pipes are used only for memory read instructions and address generation (not LEA), and on some models for simple register moves. This means that the processor can execute only two integer ALU instructions per clock cycle, where previous models can execute three. This is a serious bottleneck for pure integer code. The single-core throughput for integer code can actually be doubled by doing half of the instructions in vector registers, even if only one element of each vector is used."
> 
> This has been the case since Bulldozer debuted - but issues here could explain why integer performance on Steamroller is so low compared to other cores. This is where things become frustratingly opaque - each of the areas we've identified could be the principle bottleneck - or it's possible that the bottleneck is a combination of multiple factors (long pipelines, low fetch, cache collisions and low integer performance).


http://www.extremetech.com/computing/177099-secrets-of-steamroller-digging-deep-into-amds-next-gen-core/3

Basically, Seronx is claiming that AMD added more ALU and AGUs (the things that do math) but they didn't work properly, so most of them are disabled.

I guess to put it as the infamous and often horrible car analogy, it's like having an engine that has 8 cylinders and 8 carburettors but half the carbs are messed up so you just use 4 of them.

There are musings at S|A about how the extra IMC on Kaveri might end up getting turned on and we might see GDDR5 mobile parts as well. A fully HSA enabled laptop with 8GB of GDDR5 sounds pretty awesome, actually. It'd be rather ironic if your laptop ended up being faster than a high end Intel CPU setup when you're using HSA on the AMD and Intel can't use it.

But seronx isn't the only one making claims that mobile Kaveri is going to have something new and exciting. I do agree, there's things on the die that don't make sense and the fact that AMD has a chip that's seemingly using a mobile oriented process (the chip scales horribly when you go to high frequency but it's absolutely fantastic low). It just doesn't add up entirely for it to be a solid desktop chip.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *monstercameron*
> 
> wait so you are claiming that half the chip is disabled?


I have claimed and provided proofs that indeed Kaveri is half disabled. So I'll move on to other subjects probably to stumble on why.

First: 28nm-SHP.

GlobalFoundries 32nm-SHP;
130nm CPP => 32.5nm Lgate
104nm 1x metal layers, single patterning

TSMC's 28nm and GlobalFoundries CPA 28-nm; TSMC28HP/HPL/HPM , GF28HPP/HP/LPH/LPS/SLP
~120nm CPP => 30nm Lgate
~90nm 1x metal layers, single patterning

There is no way for a design from TSMC or CPA to nearly double all the transistors from 32nm-SHP;
Richland -> 246 mm² / 1.3 billion
Kaveri -> 245 mm² / 2.41 billion

If AMD used TSMC or CPA nodes at best there would only be a die shrink; ~210 mm² @ 1.3 billion. While if more transistors; ~250+ mm² @ 1.5 billion. The majority of 28nm nodes do not provide the density Kaveri actually has.

So, I bring to you the actual specifications of 28nm-SHP:

GlobalFoundries 28nm-SHP;
100nm CPP => 25nm Lgate
80nm 1x metal layers, double patterning

As you can tell it is the bulk node of 22nm.

----
Knowing this now there can only be two problems that AMD could have had with the initial KV-A0;
1st: A bad BEOL design or a BEOL defect, either AMD or GlobalFoundries.
2nd: Device variations where very few of the parts hit targets for parametric yields. Again, could be AMD or GlobalFoundries.

So, instead of cancelling the product or delaying the launch for the fix. AMD decided to die harvest half the die and simply sell on the power efficiency aspect; which is KV-A1. While, they work meticulously to solve the issues then with a new spin, KB-B0 which has the full die enabled.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> There are musings at S|A about how the extra IMC on Kaveri might end up getting turned on and we might see GDDR5 mobile parts as well. A fully HSA enabled laptop with 8GB of GDDR5 sounds pretty awesome, actually. It'd be rather ironic if your laptop ended up being faster than a high end Intel CPU setup when you're using HSA on the AMD and Intel can't use it.


I'll tell you that is probably not the case.

I don't think the IMC can be full GDDR5;

128-bit DDR3 and 128-bit GDDR5 or 256-bit DDR3. The language of the BKDG for 30h-3Fh kind of implies the second phy is the only one with GDDR5 mode.

8 GB DDR3 + 2 GB GDDR5.
or
16 GB DDR3.

In both cases, hUMA is enabled and any required move between the RAM interfaces is offloaded. Each interface is coherent of each other and is aware what the other one has.

KV-B0's functionality also doesn't work with; FM2+ or FP3.

While the Carrizo (60h-6Fh) leak talked about SP2. Which I think is a much bigger BGA and Kaveri 2.0 uses it as SP1. If Kaveri uses SP1 it means that there is also a southbridge on die as well. With that I think AMD will be releasing a desktop version with an SM1 socket.

FMx (PGA) = FPx (BGA)
SMx (LGA) = SPx (BGA)

Kaveri/Carrizo 1.0s (die harvested parts) => FMx/FPx
Kaveri/Carrizo 2.0s (full enabled parts) => SMx/SPx

That means AMD could have intentionally done this for segmentation. While also AMD could be preparing for the same thing to happen at the lower nodes as well.

1H 201x = 1.0s
2H 201x = 2.0s

Kaveri (28nm-SHP) and Carrizo (20nm/14nm) are the same device on different nodes. Equivalent to Agena on 65-nm and Deneb on 45-nm. I clearly remember Agena SKUs being on AM2 and AM2+ and Deneb SKUs being AM2+ and AM3.
----
Then, we have to consider KV-A1 to KV-B0 to be similar to OR-B2 to OR-C0.

KV-Ax = bdver3
KV-B0 = bdver4
Carrzio - Ax = bdver4
Carrizo - Bx = bdver5
Basilisk - Ax = bdver5


----------



## maarten12100

SeronX if you're right about Kaveri actually having much more grunt packed than we have seen it will be even better in mobile.

I thought the weak perf was caused by it not getting clocked so high but even that didn't really go but this could explain it all.


----------



## Paul17041993

half the total chip being disable isn't exactly surprising, GPUs like 7950 and 290 are in the same boat, along with the old phenomII x3s, all kinds of manufacture problems can arise and the best solution in a lot of cases is to just work with it and adapt.

size of this is definitely reassuring though for the possibility of more higher-end units, guess I have a reason to wait a little longer before diving onto FM2+ just yet...


----------



## poii

So SeronX do I get it right, Kaveri has 2.41 billion transistors on die but only half of them are working?
Always thought they gave us the number of actually working transistors and I was wondering why Kaveri doesn't outperform Richland (that much) with nearly twice the transistor count.

IF that's the case could it explain the A8-7600 delay?


----------



## Papadope

Seronx, that's some pretty damn good investigating. I'm really looking forward to Kaveri mobile now.









I thought the Kaveri launch was very strange, and this definitely helps to make more sense out of it.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Usually I'm hesitant with Seronx's predictions, but his mention of the fact that Kaveri has almost twice the transistor count of Richland and barely edges it out makes sense. I mean, look at the GPU area of a Kaveri die-shot. Does all of that really only contain 8 GCN CU's? Then there's the DDR3 PHY which is physically twice the size of Richland's, yet is functionally still just two-channel DDR3. There's definitely something fishy with it all.


----------



## cantoboi

Interesting, then it would be Intel broadwell vs Kaveri/Carrizo 2.0s. At least AMD has not show all of his cards yet.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *poii*
> 
> So SeronX do I get it right, Kaveri has 2.41 billion transistors on die but only half of them are working?


Half of the compute related transistors are disabled, which is halfish of the die.

For example the two-path four wide decode is operational; able to give both cores 4 instructions per cycle. While only one of the instruction fetch units are enabled; two cycles per fetch. This gives the Steamroller core one instruction per cycle more than Richland and Trinity cores. The allows a KV-A1 core to have 0.83 times the clock rate of Richland for the same IPC.

****
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *poii*
> 
> Always thought they gave us the number of actually working transistors and I was wondering why Kaveri doesn't outperform Richland (that much) with nearly twice the transistor count.
> 
> IF that's the case could it explain the A8-7600 delay?


The delay of any KV-A1 parts are so far unrelated to KV-B0.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> I'm really looking forward to Kaveri mobile now.


The Berlin and Kaveri 1.0 mobile parts using FP3 are still KV-A1. Consumers could be waiting till the second half for SP1(?) for mobile/embedded and SM1+ for desktop. These two sockets would house KV-B0 while also supporting Carrizo (full die enabled).

KV-B0 = 28nm-SHP
Carrizo = 20nm or 14nm node

Carrizo is most likely the die shrink of KV-B0. The equivalent of Agena which was 65nm to Deneb which was 45nm. While KV-B0 will have all the functionality of Carrizo. DDR3/*DDR4*/GDDR5/*GDDR5M*. DDR4 and GDDR5M can share the same interfaces and use the same DIMMs.

-
****:

KV-A1: 1 instruction fetch for one core every cycle; every cycle 4 instructions can be decoded per core; only 2 of those instructions can be executed per cycle..

Bulldozer/Piledriver -> Steamroller(A) is an increase of ~1 IPC.

KV-B0: 1 instruction fetch for both cores every cycle; every cycle 4 instructions can be decoded per cycle; all four can executed per cycle.


----------



## maarten12100

So will we Carrizo end up being the fully working and unlocked Kaveri or will it also feature improvements of its own. That really is one of the big questions.

I think they should postpone the real Carrizo and build unlocked Kaveri on 28nm with HDL this would reduce the power consumption more than enough to justify the extra parts being unlocked and still save some power probably.

Then 20LPM at GloFo for hopefully fully fledged Carrizo.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> So will we Carrizo end up being the fully working and unlocked Kaveri or will it also feature improvements of its own. That really is one of the big questions.


Kaveri = ~50%
Carrizo = ~75%

Die Harvest Category: (bdver3 + bdver4)
FM2+ Kaveri = <4 (2-way) Cores + <8 GCN CUs + dual-channel DDR3
FM2+ Carrizo = <4 (4-way) Cores + <8 GCN CUs + dual-channel DDR3
FP3 Kaveri = <4 (2-way) Cores + <8 GCN CUs + dual-channel DDR3
FP3 Carrizo = <4 (4-way) Cores + <8 GCN CUs + dual-channel DDR3
FP4 Carrizo = <4 (4-way) Cores + <8 GCN CUs + dual-channel DDR4

Full Enabled Category: (bdver4 + bdver5)
SM1+/SP1 Kaveri = <4 (4-way) Cores + <16 GCN CUs + quad-channel DDR4/GDDR5M
SM1+/SP2 Carrizo = <4 (4-way) Cores + <16 GCN CUs + quad-channel DDR4/GDDR5M

Between Kaveri and Carrizo, the clock rates for; CPU, GPU, NB, and IMC should increase between 1.5x to 2x.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> I think they should postpone the real Carrizo and build unlocked Kaveri on 28nm with HDL this would reduce the power consumption more than enough to justify the extra parts being unlocked and still save some power probably.


KV-A(x) to KV-B0 is 22nm Bulk with High Density Libraries.

http://cdn.overclock.net/6/63/63c5fdf9_gtc_2.jpeg <-- note the position of 22nm PDSOI.
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/Data/2011_9_11/Rumors-14nm-node-and-450mm-wafers-by-2015/GlobalFoundries_28nm_20nm.jpg <-- note the position of 22nm Bulk called 28nm SHP. 28nm-HPP isn't better than 28nm-SHP, 28nm-HPP is 28nm-HP with newer materials for better performance.

AMD probably told GlobalFoundries to forgo the PDSOI as they were tired of the "History Effect" / "Kink Effect" / "Floating Body Effect." While PDSOI was not really any more better than bulk and it probably cost more. In comparison once PDSOI is finally dead we will see FDSOI rise from its ashes with renewed strength. With none of PDSOI's problems and the ability to use the saved mask costs from bulk and FinFET bulk, for RBB and FBB.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Then 20LPM at GloFo for hopefully fully fledged Carrizo.


Carrizo might not stop at GF20LPM, it might go on to GF14LPE or GF14FD.

I'm pretty sure now that there will be a Thuban like generation after Carrizo;
Agena 65nm-SHP = Kaveri 28nm-SHP
Deneb 45nm-SHP = Carrizo 20nm/14nm
Thuban 45nm-SHP = Basilisk 20nm/14nm


----------



## heroxoot

Well, knowing all this I still want a Kaveri laptop. It will still kick some butt and play games on high on the go, for now at least. But Kaveri laptops might not be here till the end of the year.


----------



## parvadomus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Full Enabled Category: (bdver4 + bdver5)
> SM1+/SP1 Kaveri = <4 (4-way) Cores + <16 GCN CUs + quad-channel DDR4/GDDR5M
> SM1+/SP2 Carrizo = <4 (4-way) Cores + <16 GCN CUs + quad-channel DDR4/GDDR5M


Where did you get the SM1+ socket name?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parvadomus*
> 
> Where did you get the SM1+ socket name?


It is a guess from the more recent naming conventions that AMD has used before.

FM(x) -> FS(x) -> FP(x)
FT(x) -> FS(x)/AM(x)

SP(x) -> SM(x)


----------



## parvadomus

I really doubt there are that many things disabled (for 2.4B transistrs 512 shaders are almost its max, at least looking at cape verde which is 1.5B + 2 steamroller modules 800M xtors?). I only hope there is some DDR5 or DDR4 controller sleeping there.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parvadomus*
> 
> I really doubt there are that many things disabled (for 2.4B transistrs 512 shaders are almost its max, at least looking at cape verde which is 1.5B + 2 steamroller modules 800M xtors?). I only hope there is some DDR5 or DDR4 controller sleeping there.


Cape verde fully unlocked is 1,5B but this only has 512 isntead of 640 sp's. This only has 8 compared to 16 for cape verde ROP's and then there is the arch difference going to "gcn 1.1"

It is very possible that there is a lot of stuff locked down. and I'm quite sure there is a GDDR5 controller in there just no DDR4 probably.


----------



## parvadomus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Cape verde fully unlocked is 1,5B but this only has 512 isntead of 640 sp's. This only has 8 compared to 16 for cape verde ROP's and then there is the arch difference going to "gcn 1.1"
> 
> It is very possible that there is a lot of stuff locked down. and I'm quite sure there is a GDDR5 controller in there just no DDR4 probably.


It might have 512 SPs instead of 640, but it also has XDMA and Trueaudio plus HSA.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parvadomus*
> 
> It might have 512 SPs instead of 640, but it also has XDMA and Trueaudio plus HSA.


Those dsps will take up very little of the actuall transistor count especially XDMA because it replaces the older bridge bus. AMD would not include it in the 290x if it did take up too much die space you know.

I just hope they did indeed lock parts pf the steamroller module since that would mean steamroller with everything enabled would yield the 30% per clock that most of us expected.


----------



## Cyro999

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Those dsps will take up very little of the actuall transistor count especially XDMA because it replaces the older bridge bus. AMD would not include it in the 290x if it did take up too much die space you know.
> 
> I just hope they did indeed lock parts pf the steamroller module since that would mean steamroller with everything enabled would yield the 30% per clock that most of us expected.


It was actually 30% per clock over bulldozer that was quoted in that pretty early slide, not piledriver, and they did pretty well for themselves in some loads i think (recent x264 encoders love Haswell and i think Steamroller, compared to their last-gen counterparts)


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Cyro999*
> 
> It was actually 30% per clock over bulldozer that was quoted in that pretty early slide, not piledriver, and they did pretty well for themselves in some loads i think (recent x264 encoders love Haswell and i think Steamroller, compared to their last-gen counterparts)


AMD made claims of taking on Piledriver bottlenecks and showed a multitude of ~30% improvements so some of us assumed a big increase. Seeing how broken it actually is that isn't too much to ask for.



That was SteamrollerA though but the increases are against Piledriver not against Bulldozer the comparison they made was against the Piledriver chips in specific server tasks.


----------



## NaroonGTX

I don't remember them comparing it to Piledriver back then. The Piledriver parts weren't even out when the original 2012 Hot Chips presentation happened. The 30% ops per cycle increase was compared to Bulldozer rather than Piledriver. Piledriver was roughly 7~15% faster than Bulldozer, so it would make sense for the 30% figure to be over Bulldozer since Steamroller was about the same over Piledriver (7~15% on average, 20+% in other cases.)


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't remember them comparing it to Piledriver back then. The Piledriver parts weren't even out when the original 2012 Hot Chips presentation happened. The 30% ops per cycle increase was compared to Bulldozer rather than Piledriver. Piledriver was roughly 7~15% faster than Bulldozer, so it would make sense for the 30% figure to be over Bulldozer since Steamroller was about the same over Piledriver (7~15% on average, 20+% in other cases.)


The slides are from august and posted at hot chips indeed the release happened after September in October. They are based on Piledriver numbers. Steamroller btw was more but it has lower clocks due to the process it is on in Kaveri.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parvadomus*
> 
> I really doubt there are that many things disabled (for 2.4B transistrs 512 shaders are almost its max, at least looking at cape verde which is 1.5B + 2 steamroller modules 800M xtors?). I only hope there is some DDR5 or DDR4 controller sleeping there.


Look at Hawaii.

6.2 billion transistors / 438 mm²

6200 ÷ 4 => 1.55 billion transistors
438 mm² ÷ 4 => 109.5 mm²
2816:176:64 - 512b ÷ 4 => 704:44:16 - 128b

I think the Southern Islands and Sea Islands GPUs had something redundant included into their designs. Which increased the transistor count by a degree. I think with Hawaii, AMD reduced the redundancy to the absolute minimum. It still has redundant parts because it is a big die, but it isn't as bad as Cape Verde, Bonaire, Pitcairn, or Tahiti.

6200 ÷ 2.75 => 2.25 billion transistors
438 mm² ÷ 2.75 => 159 mm²
2816:176:64 - 512b ÷ 2.75 => 1024:64:23.2 - 186b

Even with this there is some redundancy for example Kaveri is 1 full shader engine, doing this division gives 2 shader engines. (2 SEs with 8 CUs/3 RBEs each rather than 1 SE with 16 CUs/4 RBEs)

236 million transistors + 236 million transistors + ~2.25 billion transistors => ~2,722 billion transistors.

I put the GPU at a maximum of ~1.9 billion and at a minimum of ~1.7 billion.

I think Kaveri's GCN has no redundant/shadow transistors which explains why it has much lower clocks and a much more dense design. It is operating purely on die harvesting as for allowing the GPU to be active.

Kaveri:
2410 million transistors - 472 million transistors = 1,938 million transistors
This gives us the left overs for the uncore(least dense) and the GPU(most dense).

I think the odds of AMD doing the opposite of Llano and Orochi would be low.


----------



## parvadomus

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Look at Hawaii.
> 
> 6.2 billion transistors / 438 mm²
> 
> 6200 ÷ 4 => 1.55 billion transistors
> 438 mm² ÷ 4 => 109.5 mm²
> 2816:176:64 - 512b ÷ 4 => 704:44:16 - 128b
> 
> I think the Southern Islands and Sea Islands GPUs had something redundant included into their designs. Which increased the transistor count by a degree. I think with Hawaii, AMD reduced the redundancy to the absolute minimum. It still has redundant parts because it is a big die, but it isn't as bad as Cape Verde, Bonaire, Pitcairn, or Tahiti.
> 
> 6200 ÷ 2.75 => 2.25 billion transistors
> 438 mm² ÷ 2.75 => 159 mm²
> 2816:176:64 - 512b ÷ 2.75 => 1024:64:23.2 - 186b
> 
> Even with this there is some redundancy for example Kaveri is 1 full shader engine, doing this division gives 2 shader engines. (2 SEs with 8 CUs/3 RBEs each rather than 1 SE with 16 CUs/4 RBEs)
> 
> 236 million transistors + 236 million transistors + ~2.25 billion transistors => ~2,722 billion transistors.
> 
> I put the GPU at a maximum of ~1.9 billion and at a minimum of ~1.7 billion.
> 
> I think Kaveri's GCN has no redundant/shadow transistors which explains why it has much lower clocks and a much more dense design. It is operating purely on die harvesting as for allowing the GPU to be active.
> 
> Kaveri:
> 2410 million transistors - 472 million transistors = 1,938 million transistors
> This gives us the left overs for the uncore(least dense) and the GPU(most dense).
> 
> I think the odds of AMD doing the opposite of Llano and Orochi would be low.


Why try to downscale a large chip? We have Oland XT too. Its 384 shaders / 8 rops / 1.04B transistors. If we add 128 shaders + XDMA + TrueAudio + whatever DSPs it lacks, it should be around 1.4 / 1.5B transistors. Maybe there are 128 shaders / 8 rops inactive in Kaveri but I dont know. Maybe looking at a Kaveri die shot someone can get the true shader count.


----------



## Papadope

Have the steamroller going over at my place today. Couldn't help but think of this thread.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Have the steamroller going over at my place today. Couldn't help but think of this thread.





Spoiler: how you see it









Spoiler: how most of us see it


----------



## Papadope

lol


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *parvadomus*
> 
> Why try to downscale a large chip? We have Oland XT too. Its 384 shaders / 8 rops / 1.04B transistors. If we add 128 shaders + XDMA + TrueAudio + whatever DSPs it lacks, it should be around 1.4 / 1.5B transistors. Maybe there are 128 shaders / 8 rops inactive in Kaveri but I dont know. Maybe looking at a Kaveri die shot someone can get the true shader count.


Oland, Cape Verde, Bonaire, Pitcairn, and Tahiti all use Southern Island tiles.

Hawaii is the only GPU that uses Volcanic Island Tiles with Kaveri.

Depending if you trust AMD or DG Nerdy you get;
16 CUs for 2,254.55 million transistors.
or
16 CUs for 2,066.67 million transistors.

Since Hawaii does not use a full shader engine like Kaveri, the numbers can be off.

16 CUs for Kaveri would be less than 2255/2067 million transistors.


----------



## Olivon

Quote:


> I would love to have the same stuff Seronx is on


The Stilt on XS

That's wet-dreamin' all along with you


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Olivon*
> 
> The Stilt on XS
> 
> That's wet-dreamin' all along with you


Except all his numbers are pretty much wrong;
Kaveri is on 28nm-SHP process which is a renamed 22nm node.

120 mm² = GPU
60 mm² = CPU
65 mm² = Uncore

The density is 1.5x that of a TSMC 28nm node.

The 8 CU only followers have to understand that the 1 CU in the GPU area is 7.1 mm²
That is more die area given to a CU than Kabini, Oland, Cape Verde, Bonaire, Pitcairn, Tahiti, and Hawaii. On a node that is a half node more dense than 28nm HP TSMC nodes.


----------



## Olivon

The Stilt got real insider informations, you're just speculating and throwing things all over, please have a break.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Olivon*
> 
> The Stilt got real insider informations, you're just speculating and throwing things all over, please have a break.


If he has insider information and has a defined relationship with AMD. He is in place to discredit anything that can harm AMD's sales.


----------



## Olivon

Nope. He's not PR and he gives 99% of the time good informations.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Olivon*
> 
> Nope. He's not PR and he gives 99% of the time good informations.


I guess this is one of those 1% of the times where his informations is bad.


----------



## Olivon

He's a trustworthy person. He doesn't spread fanzies speculations, he got hardware in his handz.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, I can vouch for The Stilt. AMD even sends him samples sometimes. He's a very trustworthy source.


----------



## Seronx

Yet he says Kaveri is using 28nm-HPP and says that Gate First has the same density as Gate Last. Both of which are pretty much wrong.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Yeah, I can vouch for The Stilt. AMD even sends him samples sometimes. He's a very trustworthy source.


I wouldn't put anyone who receives AMD samples as trustworthy. In regards of hidden functionality within a blurred die shot.


----------



## hartofwave

What is the speculated release for the non cut down parts then?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *hartofwave*
> 
> What is the speculated release for the non cut down parts then?


not sure if they ever will be released. If AMD gets the chance to easily make a second revision like they did with the Piledriver cores they will unlock as much as possible for sure. But with Excavator based APUs being about a year away they might try to make a fully unlocked Excavator APU.

If an unlocked part would yield what is discussed here it would be a game changer for the APU as there would be no compromise.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *hartofwave*
> 
> What is the speculated release for the non cut down parts then?


I don't think there actually _are_ any non-cut-down parts. Don't hold your breath. There might be a Kaveri refresh later this year, but that's about it.


----------



## sdlvx

Regarding AMD GPUs... They always leave some parts of the chip disabled for redundancy. Tahiti vs GK104 was the best example I could think of that's recent.

7970 was a partially disabled chip. AMD never released a fully enabled Tahiti. Meanwhile, Nvidia released GK104 as GTX 680 and it was fully enabled.

Meanwhile, for the first few months of availability, 7970 was easy to find and GTX 680 was sold out everywhere. Eventually, Nvidia gave up on selling full GK104 dies and sold GK104 as GTX 670 with a disabled SMX cluster and availability finally improved.

But my point is that AMD usually does things like this, at least with GPUs.

I do remember when it was first discovered Tahiti had extra parts, some forums exploded in speculation. But it was only to help improve yields and give AMD an advantage compared to Nvidia.

AMD is generally cautious about this because making sure you have better yields gives better performance per dollar (since you're not having customers pay for the failed chips in each wafer) and they feel it's better to have strong availability over an extra 5% performance.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I don't think there actually _are_ any non-cut-down parts. Don't hold your breath. There might be a Kaveri refresh later this year, but that's about it.


_all_ CPUs and especially GPUs produced have a level of disabled parts, simple redundancy, no manufacture process ever will give 100% perfect results, otherwise AMD (or intel) would have released a 6GHz chip long ago.

modern GPUs nowadays, the high-ends may have ~10% of the total shader count disabled, Hawaii technically has 3072 total shaders but 11/12 blocks on each of the 16 columns are enabled on 290X, and 9/12 for 290, or something along those numbers, cant exactly remember the specifics atm.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> _all_ CPUs and especially GPUs produced have a level of disabled parts, simple redundancy, no manufacture process ever will give 100% perfect results, otherwise AMD (or intel) would have released a 6GHz chip long ago.
> 
> modern GPUs nowadays, the high-ends may have ~10% of the total shader count disabled, Hawaii technically has 3072 total shaders but 11/12 blocks on each of the 16 columns are enabled on 290X, and 9/12 for 290, or something along those numbers, cant exactly remember the specifics atm.


I'm well aware of all that, that's nothing new to me. I was dismissing Seronx's claims that we could see a [Kaveri] chip with double the CU's and such down the line, with a big perf increase. Seems like something rooted in a wet dream or something. Sometimes he is on point, but I don't think anything will come of this.

At best we would see a refresh with slightly higher clocks and better OC potential due to a more mature process a la Richland, but that's about it. More GPU CU's would be rather pointless anyway, as the DDR3 bottleneck is a big limiting factor in the performance of the iGPU's anyway.


----------



## Papadope

You have a good point Naroon. Perhaps they were meant to be partially disabled all along and they are only there as a sort of test run for Carrizo. They could test and work out any design flaws now and the general public would never know as all the shipped parts are disabled. Once ddr4 is available the full fledge chip with the updated excavator cores and any fixes that had to be made.

Besides the ddr3 bottleneck on the current chip wouldn't the tdp be too high if it was fully enabled? Those stock coolers can't handle any more than the current tdp unless they were to switch to am3+ coolers but I'm pretty sure that'll never happen.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yeah, they definitely should've had the coolers that the FX-6350 and FX-8/9 series come with. I do think Seronx was on the money when he theorized that Carrizo will be a sort of upgraded Kaveri. Who knows, since they've touted that Excavator will be the big performance increase, maybe "Excavator" really is just Steamroller on steroids. Would be nice if AMD eventually tells us something about the EX uarch before the product actually ships in Q1 2015, lol.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> At best we would see a refresh with slightly higher clocks and better OC potential due to a more mature process a la Richland, but that's about it. More GPU CU's would be rather pointless anyway, as the DDR3 bottleneck is a big limiting factor in the performance of the iGPU's anyway.


hence why it would have 4/4 of the memory channels enabled.


----------



## NaroonGTX

The problem with that is that FM2+ is dual-channel only. So everyone would need to buy new MOBO's for a new socket yet again just to get better memory bandwidth for the iGPU... I don't think they would make a new socket just for quad-channel DDR3. DDR4 is still quite a while away from consumers, and Carrizo will already be out by then. DDR4 support seems to be supported by Carrizo/Toronto, but in what form, is yet to be determined. Still, even if we do get quad-channel DDR4, that doesn't mean the next parts will have double the GPU CU's.


----------



## Kuivamaa

The leaked die shot from one year ago is most likely Excavator - and EX will be upgraded SR, kinda obvious, don't you think? I simply do not believe AMD went into such trouble to disable so much logic within the core itself - this isn't lasering a few CUs off a GPU, it would require them to mess with the internals and I wouldn't be surprised if this was impossible due to costs involved. As for SR, it was poised to offer "greater parallelism" and this is exactly what it did.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/5156/43/amd-a10-7850k-kaveri-review-amds-new-apu-steamroller-vs-piledriver

It usually heavily beats its PD predecessors clock for clock (but it does have a few peculiar regressions here and there, probably FPU related). It also is more efficient. With Kaveri the performance is already there, let's not go searching for red herrings. The shortcomings and peculiarities are elsewhere. For such an important product for AMD,this core can only be found in two desktop SKUs, the 7850k and the 7700k.No A8 7600, no 1 or 3 module versions, no mobile chips, no big opterons, no FX. We have argued in this very thread before about the possibility of AMD abandoning big servers and enthusiast desktops but that doesn't explain why SR is absent from the most important market of them all, laptops. Llano, Trinity and Richland all targeted laptops first and foremost.
I don't know what's wrong, it could be that the process used isn't really appropriate and AMD dished kaveri out just to help HSA kick off, or yields are low, or that it is just a stopgap till excavator. People speculate it might be SMT capable and I really feel that if AMD wants to have a future in big core, they need to go that way as well. Else intel will forever be ahead in MT performance for a given die size.

http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=184500&postcount=927
_The single Bulldozer decoder somehow couldn't handle 2 threads running
at 100% and for benchmarks we see at most a 50% performance increase
when the "second core" becomes active. So it doesn't work good enough
for CMT (but it's more than OK for dual threaded SMT)

Now why not double up the decoder and use the capability to decode
2 threads for SMT instead?
_
http://beyond3d.com/showpost.php?s=f82da35b89918c7cb57f5570c6e03451&p=1740893&postcount=7
_
The odd thing from a single-threaded perspective is that the scheduler logic outside of the tables is either much denser or not much larger. It's also not really necessary to have double the retirement tracking or rename tables for a core whose decoder is still 4-wide--if the core is single-threaded.
*Perhaps it isn't*._


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> I don't know what's wrong, it could be that the process used isn't really appropriate and AMD dished kaveri out just to help HSA kick off, or yields are low, or that it is just a stopgap till excavator.


The wonderful thing is that Kaveri performs best at lower TDP's, yet none of the mobile SKU's are available. AMD showcased the A8-7600 much more than the other two SKU's, and critical reception to it was positively warm, yet that SKU was the only one that didn't launch yet. That is the one desktop part that most people wanted, yet it's not available. The whole thing is a bit fishy, but who knows what's going on behind the scenes.

As for SMT, who knows. AMD is so secretive right now that not even James Bond or Cate Archer could infiltrate them and gather any worthwhile information. SMT would be cool, but I don't think it's coming any time soon. It won't be in Carrizo/Toronto since the maps have already shown that it's still 4-cores max. We don't even know what Basilisk will be, besides some SoC design that will succeed Carrizo.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The wonderful thing is that Kaveri performs best at lower TDP's, yet none of the mobile SKU's are available. AMD showcased the A8-7600 much more than the other two SKU's, and critical reception to it was positively warm, yet that SKU was the only one that didn't launch yet. That is the one desktop part that most people wanted, yet it's not available. The whole thing is a bit fishy, but who knows what's going on behind the scenes.
> 
> As for SMT, who knows. AMD is so secretive right now that not even James Bond or *Cate Archer* could infiltrate them and gather any worthwhile information. SMT would be cool, but I don't think it's coming any time soon. It won't be in Carrizo/Toronto since the maps have already shown that it's still 4-cores max. We don't even know what Basilisk will be, besides some SoC design that will succeed Carrizo.


You aren't very subtle, are you







NOLF were good games back in the day, indeed.

I will probably upgrade my laptop this year-I wan-t it to be gaming capable without being as massive as an alienware (and obviously I don't need the power of SLi etc. I have a desktop for that, just talking about form here). Kaveri ,in theory, fits the bill perfectly , it is a success story waiting to happen but

a) we need to actually see the damn thing hitting the market
b) we need models with at least passable screens and 1080p for that matter
c) and to be packed with DDR3 as fast as possible

So I won't be holding my breath.

As for SMT,it is complex to implement and the rumour stems from an unverified leak so anyone's guess is as good as mine.Anyway roadmaps mention cores but not threads, don't they







One can only hope.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The problem with that is that FM2+ is dual-channel only. So everyone would need to buy new MOBO's for a new socket yet again just to get better memory bandwidth for the iGPU... I don't think they would make a new socket just for quad-channel DDR3. DDR4 is still quite a while away from consumers, and Carrizo will already be out by then. DDR4 support seems to be supported by Carrizo/Toronto, but in what form, is yet to be determined. Still, even if we do get quad-channel DDR4, that doesn't mean the next parts will have double the GPU CU's.


hey intel can do it every year, so whats wrong with AMD doing every 2-3 years?

IMO though I would expect this newer socket to be of the LGA kind, similar to their F(retired), C32 and G34 opteron classes, and may not be around till 2015 (ie; excavator, like we're already expecting)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Paul17041993*
> 
> IMO though I would expect this newer socket to be of the LGA kind, similar to their F(retired), C32 and G34 opteron classes, and may not be around till 2015 (ie; excavator, like we're already expecting)


I remember seeing an AMD guy say that consumer platforms migrating to LGA layouts would be possible in the future. Maybe that will be the unified socket (if that ever comes to fruition, that is...)
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> You aren't very subtle, are you
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NOLF were good games back in the day, indeed.
> 
> As for SMT,it is complex to implement and the rumour stems from an unverified leak so anyone's guess is as good as mine.Anyway roadmaps mention cores but not threads, don't they
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One can only hope.


Still good games today!









And good point about the roadmaps, lol. Guess we'll find out at some point this year(?) or next.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> The leaked die shot from one year ago is most likely Excavator - and EX will be upgraded SR, kinda obvious, don't you think? I simply do not believe AMD went into such trouble to disable so much logic within the core itself - this isn't lasering a few CUs off a GPU, it would require them to mess with the internals and I wouldn't be surprised if this was impossible due to costs involved. As for SR, it was poised to offer "greater parallelism" and this is exactly what it did.
> 
> http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/5156/43/amd-a10-7850k-kaveri-review-amds-new-apu-steamroller-vs-piledriver
> 
> It usually heavily beats its PD predecessors clock for clock (but it does have a few peculiar regressions here and there, probably FPU related). It also is more efficient. With Kaveri the performance is already there, let's not go searching for red herrings. The shortcomings and peculiarities are elsewhere. For such an important product for AMD,this core can only be found in two desktop SKUs, the 7850k and the 7700k.No A8 7600, no 1 or 3 module versions, no mobile chips, no big opterons, no FX. We have argued in this very thread before about the possibility of AMD abandoning big servers and enthusiast desktops but that doesn't explain why SR is absent from the most important market of them all, laptops. Llano, Trinity and Richland all targeted laptops first and foremost.
> I don't know what's wrong, it could be that the process used isn't really appropriate and AMD dished kaveri out just to help HSA kick off, or yields are low, or that it is just a stopgap till excavator. People speculate it might be SMT capable and I really feel that if AMD wants to have a future in big core, they need to go that way as well. Else intel will forever be ahead in MT performance for a given die size.
> 
> http://semiaccurate.com/forums/showpost.php?p=184500&postcount=927
> _The single Bulldozer decoder somehow couldn't handle 2 threads running
> at 100% and for benchmarks we see at most a 50% performance increase
> when the "second core" becomes active. So it doesn't work good enough
> for CMT (but it's more than OK for dual threaded SMT)
> 
> Now why not double up the decoder and use the capability to decode
> 2 threads for SMT instead?
> _
> http://beyond3d.com/showpost.php?s=f82da35b89918c7cb57f5570c6e03451&p=1740893&postcount=7
> _
> The odd thing from a single-threaded perspective is that the scheduler logic outside of the tables is either much denser or not much larger. It's also not really necessary to have double the retirement tracking or rename tables for a core whose decoder is still 4-wide--if the core is single-threaded.
> *Perhaps it isn't*._


I do give seronx a little credit for what he's saying. There is something massively amiss with Steamroller.

As you said, the release is odd. Why do desktop first? There are a lot of people thinking desktop is dying and AMD is giving up on it, yet they release their new architecture only for desktop? It doesn't make sense by that alone. And then you have the fact that Kaveri actually performs better at low clock speeds in relation to power consumption, yet we're not seeing low power consumption Kaveri chips.

Something is definitely going on with Steamroller that we're not being told about. I couple it with the fact that there's a SteamrollerA, which is presumed unreleased, and SteamrollerB, which is what we have. There's a ton of mysteries with this chip and architecture. I've heard things personally from someone who works at IBM that 22nm SOI between IBM and AMD was a disaster that shouldn't be talked about (he was drunk and I was taking advantage of him, lol) and that there's were (at the time, this was several months ago, around the end of 2013) a lot of things in development that they were trying to get working (IBM, AMD, etc).

But the fact that we saw Kaveri ramrodded onto 28nm bulk, desktop chips released first, this mystery die gets leaked with no information about it, lots of odd talk from very vague unofficial sources (I had one and 8350rocks @ tom's seems to have one too), etc just seems way too odd to me. It's sort of like AMD released Steamroller just to say they released Steamroller. Kind of like how they released FX 9000 series just to say they released another line of chips on AM3+.

The one thing I take away from this though is that just because there is no FX style Steamroller doesn't mean that there's never going to be another FX style CPU from AMD. There's no mobile Kaveri right now either, and that doesn't mean AMD is done releasing mobile chips. Mobile Kaveri is coming.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> It's sort of like AMD released Steamroller just to say they released Steamroller. Kind of like how they released FX 9000 series just to say they released another line of chips on AM3+.


I'd say they released Kaveri so the software devs can start toying with it and get working on some HSA apps. Roy Taylor said the FX-9000 series was his idea and that he'd pushed for them to release it. I guess the idea was to release a beast gaming CPU that wouldn't need to be overclocked, basically some better-binned chips, hence Centurion.
Quote:


> The one thing I take away from this though is that just because there is no FX style Steamroller doesn't mean that there's never going to be another FX style CPU from AMD.


Who knows. FX is just a brand name. Remember that OEM-only Athlon/APU that got branded as an FX recently? It was pretty much just an unlocked Richland APU for OEM's, nothing special about it. I don't really see AMD releasing anymore CPU-only parts besides die-harvested Athlons and such, but that's just me (for the consumer channel, anyway.) If they do go and release another CPU part, I think it would be on a new LGA-style socket, but this would be either late 2015 or c. 2016 at the earliest.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> I'd say they released Kaveri so the software devs can start toying with it and get working on some HSA apps. Roy Taylor said the FX-9000 series was his idea and that he'd pushed for them to release it. I guess the idea was to release a beast gaming CPU that wouldn't need to be overclocked, basically some better-binned chips, hence Centurion.
> Who knows. FX is just a brand name. Remember that OEM-only Athlon/APU that got branded as an FX recently? It was pretty much just an unlocked Richland APU for OEM's, nothing special about it. I don't really see AMD releasing anymore CPU-only parts besides die-harvested Athlons and such, but that's just me (for the consumer channel, anyway.) If they do go and release another CPU part, I think it would be on a new LGA-style socket, but this would be either late 2015 or c. 2016 at the earliest.


You misread him. By FX I do not believe SVDLX means a cpu only part. He is talking about a 6 or 8 core APU that gives the type of multi-core performance we see with the FX 8300 or 9000 series.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Ah, that would be nice indeed. They may very well turn the FX series into APU's as well. Would be nice competitors to the i7's at that point.


----------



## jsc1973

I would strongly suspect any future FX chips would be APU's. Since HSA is such a huge part of AMD's long-term strategy, and HSA requires the presence of an on-board GPU, it would make sense that any new FX chips would have one. They would probably be cream-of-the-crop chips off the very top of the A-series production lines, clocked higher than regular A-series APU's.


----------



## sdlvx

Indeed, when I say "FX style CPU", I'm basically just asking for a 3m/6c or better CPU. I don't care if it's an APU or not, just something that does very well in traditional CPU workloads. If I had 5m/10c CPU with a bunch of GCN cores on it I wouldn't care. I would definitely enjoy the HSA acceleration when it came, but I don't want to sit around and wait for software to get HSA features if it's something I actually need to use.

Basically, "FX style CPU" is me saying something that's better than FX 9590 in the CPU department, regardless of if it's a CPU or an APU. I do feel like we'll see HSA come to multiple discrete chips somewhere down the line. Whether that's in 2014 or in 2024 I have no idea. But I think that eventually it's going to be a requirement, and I do feel it's going to happen sooner rather than later. Intel and Nvidia's actions make me feel like AMD won't sit around and do nothing in regards to fast buses between different dies.


----------



## synge

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I'm basically just asking for a 3m/6c or better CPU. I don't care if it's an APU or not, just something that does very well in traditional CPU workloads. If I had 5m/10c CPU with a bunch of GCN cores on it I wouldn't care. I would definitely enjoy the HSA acceleration when it came, but I don't want to sit around and wait for software to get HSA features if it's something I actually need to use.


This! I would be okay with AMD dropping the FX line entirely and going APU-only, if they would just release a 3m/6c variant to choose from.


----------



## Seronx

Kaveri 1.0D (GF28SHP) -> January 2014
Kaveri 1.0M/E (GF28SHP) -> May 2014
Kaveri 2.0D (GF28SHP) -> July 2014
Kaveri 2.0M/E (GF28SHP) -> November 2014
CarrizoD (GF14FD or GF14XM/LPE) -> July 2015
CarrzioM/E (GF14FD or GF14XM/LPE) -> November 2015

^-- something like this is my expectation. (If there is a Carrizo 1.0 and Carrizo 2.0, it would be separated between GF20LPM and GF14(xx))

40h-4Fh (GF28SHP) -> October 2014
or
40h-4Fh (GF14FD) -> March 2015.

^-- for the 16-core FX/Opteron.


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri 1.0D (GF28SHP) -> January 2014
> Kaveri 1.0M/E (GF28SHP) -> May 2014
> Kaveri 2.0D (GF28SHP) -> July 2014
> Kaveri 2.0M/E (GF28SHP) -> November 2014
> CarrizoD (GF14FD or GF14XM/LPE) -> July 2015
> CarrzioM/E (GF14FD or GF14XM/LPE) -> November 2015
> 
> ^-- something like this is my expectation. (If there is a Carrizo 1.0 and Carrizo 2.0, it would be separated between GF20LPM and GF14(xx))
> 
> 40h-4Fh (GF28SHP) -> October 2014
> or
> 40h-4Fh (GF14FD) -> March 2015.
> 
> ^-- for the 16-core FX/Opteron.


Depending on how much better Kaveri 2 would be people are going to complain if this is the case.

I think Carrizo will be either on GF20LPM but I'm quite sure it won't be on GF14XM since that is a ultra mobile focused node which would have low yield on "large" chips.
Then there is a small chance of it being on 28 with HDL but seeing how Steamroller already is like that I think that won't be the case.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Depending on how much better Kaveri 2 would be people are going to complain if this is the case.


~2x increase in static performance and up to ~1.5x increase in Perf/Watt is my generalized expectation.

A8-7600 (45W):
4 * 8 * 3.1 => 99.2 GFlops
384 * 2 * 0.72 => 552.96 GFlops

A8-7600v2 or A8-8600 (45W):
4 * 16 * 1.8 => 115.2 GFlops
768 * 2 * 0.5 => 768 GFlops
^-min numbers-^
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> I think Carrizo will be either on GF20LPM but I'm quite sure it won't be on GF14XM since that is a ultra mobile focused node which would have low yield on "large" chips.


All nodes in production after 28nm SHP are all G nodes. Which means that all of them are high performance focused nodes. No node has high yields for big chips. Anything bigger than 100 mm² you have an exponential rise in defects.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Then there is a small chance of it being on 28 with HDL but seeing how Steamroller already is like that I think that won't be the case.


GF28SHP is using HDL, as you can tell in comparison to IBM's 22nm PDSOI.

IBM's 22nm PDSOI -> 15 metal layers, High Speed track
AMD's 28nm SHP -> 12 metal layers, High Density track


----------



## synge

In addition to HSA, what AMD really needs to compete with Intel in the midrange space again is to improve their IPC enough such that their 3m/6c part is a credible threat to i5.


----------



## Kuivamaa

I still believe AMD won't abandon traditional server segment, nor stop fielding Xeon competitors ,there is too much money to be made right there, given the right product. I mean, they won one customer in Verizon few months ago and it already shows in their latest server revenue reports. New opterons will bring new FX (or whatever the name will be) . But even without multicore server chips, 14nm would definitely allow (should they want) AMD to field desktop/laptop excavator APU products with 3 (or more) modules.


----------



## sugarhell

They cant really abandon server segment when firepro gains market share so fast.They can get money from that area but i think they wait for ddr4. Its kinda waste to release a new server cpu with ddr3 right now


----------



## Durquavian

Alot of good info guys and gals. THX.


----------



## Olivon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Regarding AMD GPUs... They always leave some parts of the chip disabled for redundancy. Tahiti vs GK104 was the best example I could think of that's recent.
> 
> 7970 was a partially disabled chip. AMD never released a fully enabled Tahiti. Meanwhile, Nvidia released GK104 as GTX 680 and it was fully enabled.


I don't understand.
AMD themselves said that Tahiti got no hidden cores :
Quote:


> "There are no hidden cores&#8230;'"


http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25419-amd-confirms-radeon-hd-7970-only-has-32-compute-units


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> ~2x increase in static performance and up to ~1.5x increase in Perf/Watt is my generalized expectation.
> 
> A8-7600 (45W):
> 4 * 8 * 3.1 => 99.2 GFlops
> 384 * 2 * 0.72 => 552.96 GFlops
> 
> A8-7600v2 or A8-8600 (45W):
> 4 * 16 * 1.8 => 115.2 GFlops
> 768 * 2 * 0.5 => 768 GFlops
> ^-min numbers-^
> All nodes in production after 28nm SHP are all G nodes. Which means that all of them are high performance focused nodes. No node has high yields for big chips. Anything bigger than 100 mm² you have an exponential rise in defects.
> GF28SHP is using HDL, as you can tell in comparison to IBM's 22nm PDSOI.
> 
> IBM's 22nm PDSOI -> 15 metal layers, High Speed track
> AMD's 28nm SHP -> 12 metal layers, High Density track


It seems very unlickely that AMD will blast the market with Kaveri 2 but it would be really beast and I would really consider getting one especially a mobile part..

what is the factor we are talking about for that rise though since chips/waffer at a certain size * 0,996^die area
Seems plausible to me.

Either way interesting times are coming and I sure hope AMD executes like that.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Olivon*
> 
> I don't understand.
> AMD themselves said that Tahiti got no hidden cores :
> http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25419-amd-confirms-radeon-hd-7970-only-has-32-compute-units


hidden =/= disabled.
trolololo


----------



## Olivon

http://tof.canardpc.com/view/be5e477c-02f9-41f4-8b0f-c92864e7555c.jpg

http://www.chipworks.com/en/technical-competitive-analysis/resources/blog/inside-the-asus-amd-7970-graphics-card-tsmc-28-nm/

We clearly see 8CU per quarter


----------



## Papadope

Why are you guys so confident Carrizo will be 20nm or 14nm? I can't see them changing nodes that quickly.


----------



## Kuivamaa

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Why are you guys so confident Carrizo will be 20nm or 14nm? I can't see them changing nodes that quickly.


"In its last conference call, AMD's Lisu Su, VP and General Manager of Global Business Units, told David Wong of Wells Fargo that, "we are 28 this year, we have 20-nanometer in design, and then FinFET thereafter." Looking at that timeline above, it's obvious that AMD needs to already be thinking about its 14nm designs - especially since 14nm will be the big leap from current 28nm chips - but the architecture probably isn't at a stage where GF's roadmap shift will harm AMD's ability to execute."

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181136-samsung-and-globalfoundries-buddy-up-for-14nm-while-ibm-heads-for-the-exit

I suppose "FinFET thereafter" is 14nm although Samsung's 14nm is probably different to what GloFo originally planned or what TSMC is preparing. In any case, Carrizo on 28nm is probably a last resort, AMD most likely had it planned for 20nm or lower but, well, GloFo obviously didn't deliver the goods.


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Olivon*
> 
> I don't understand.
> AMD themselves said that Tahiti got no hidden cores :
> http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/25419-amd-confirms-radeon-hd-7970-only-has-32-compute-units


7970 is an example of the very few that get to near-perfect bin quality rates and don't need an excessive amount of redundancy, maby just a few extra gates in places.

what was fortunate for AMD in that sense is the demand for 7950 was kept high enough that the cut-down 7970s were still being used up, and even demanded full 7970s to be cut down and sold as 7950s similar to how some 290Xs were sold as 290s due to excess demand.

79x0 (and current 280X) is also only GCN1.0, rest are all GCN1.1 now which uses a different (HSA compatible) memory controller, trueaudio, etc


----------



## Papadope

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Kuivamaa*
> 
> "In its last conference call, AMD's Lisu Su, VP and General Manager of Global Business Units, told David Wong of Wells Fargo that, "we are 28 this year, we have 20-nanometer in design, and then FinFET thereafter." Looking at that timeline above, it's obvious that AMD needs to already be thinking about its 14nm designs - especially since 14nm will be the big leap from current 28nm chips - but the architecture probably isn't at a stage where GF's roadmap shift will harm AMD's ability to execute."
> 
> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181136-samsung-and-globalfoundries-buddy-up-for-14nm-while-ibm-heads-for-the-exit
> 
> I suppose "FinFET thereafter" is 14nm although Samsung's 14nm is probably different to what GloFo originally planned or what TSMC is preparing. In any case, Carrizo on 28nm is probably a last resort, AMD most likely had it planned for 20nm or lower but, well, GloFo obviously didn't deliver the goods.


Thanks, wasn't aware of that. 20nm in design though makes me think mid 2016 product releases.


----------



## Seronx

Did the measurements;

Tahiti CU: ~5.7 mm² / 2CU: ~11.4 mm²

So to shrink Tahiti's CUs into Kaveri the math is; Old die area * sqr((New CPP / 4) / (Old CPP / 4)) = New die area

My inexact measure of Kaveri's CU is ~7.1 mm²

126 nm to 100 nm:

1 CU: ~5.7 mm² * sqr((100 ÷ 4) / (126 ÷ 4)) => ~3.59 mm²
2 CU ~11.4 mm² * sqr((100 ÷ 4) / (126 ÷ 4)) => ~7.18 mm²

Doing a more exact measurement: ~7.64 mm², I had the image dimensions off which lead to 0.54 mm² loss.

120 nm to 100 nm:

1 CU: ~5.7 mm² * sqr((100 ÷ 4) / (130 ÷ 4)) => ~3.96 mm²
2 CU ~11.4 mm² * sqr((100 ÷ 4) / (130 ÷ 4)) => ~7.92 mm²

There is an oddity that most people out right lie; Kaveri's GCN L2 cache is 64KB but it is coherent to SR's L2 Cache and to Memory via IOMMU.

Tahiti has 8 RBEs to 6 128KB L2 caches
Hawaii has 16 RBEs to 8 128KB L2 caches
Kaveri has 4 RBEs to 2 64KB L2 caches

There is one transistor cost saver. AMD made something that would cost ~2.15 billion transistors(Tahiti halfed) to cost only ~1.75 billion transistors, the missing ~400 million transistors are all cost saving based.


----------



## Seronx

Sorry for double posting;



Just felt like posting this here since I already did so on SA. If I get more complaints I'll go by a unit basis since I understand what happened.

The imgur shot is by hand and the Kaveri Steamroller is synthetic.


^-- the blurring is because they converted everything into synthetic macros.

Jaguar - 5 unique macros
Bobcat - 12 unique macros
SteamrollerB - 63 unique macros

The design is no longer fully made by hand thus you can't tell what part is what.


^Unless you have something like this.

The computer wasn't that great in rearranging the units so the gist is that it is flipped except for the cache unit. I expect later nodes to be even harder to tell the improvements.

--
The more interesting things I have noticed while analyzing SteamrollerB;
Each L1D has two LSU interfaces
While the L1 DTLB/L2 DTLB area is two times as big.
The FPU is two times as small but has the same amount of units. It's most likely HDL because why not?

Most if not everything on the die is blurred or hidden so having the Imgur shot helped a lot.


----------



## Pro3ootector

I haven't seen this posted. Is that really official?

http://www.techknowbase.com/amd-fx-processors-steamroller-cores-2014/

be cause i hope it is not..


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> I haven't seen this posted. Is that really official?
> 
> http://www.techknowbase.com/amd-fx-processors-steamroller-cores-2014/
> 
> be cause i hope it is not..


likely the next FX chip will actually be an APU. which means socket change to FM2+ or FM+ Unless there is a heck of a suprise waiting..


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> I haven't seen this posted. Is that really official?
> 
> http://www.techknowbase.com/amd-fx-processors-steamroller-cores-2014/
> 
> be cause i hope it is not..


It's obvious you have not been following AMD neww for a while. This has been readily known since last November at the APU '13 Conference.


----------



## MacLeod

Yep AMD has pretty much abandoned the performance CPU segment. Intel is all we have left now. Thats why Ill most likely be jumping to Intel for the first time since 2001 when the Haswell K refresh comes out next month. I had been holding out on refreshing my rig hoping something from AMD would come up on the horizon for us PC hardcores but Ive finally accepted the truth that there wont be at least for another couple years.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Yep AMD has pretty much abandoned the performance CPU segment. Intel is all we have left now. Thats why Ill most likely be jumping to Intel for the first time since 2001 when the Haswell K refresh comes out next month. I had been holding out on refreshing my rig hoping something from AMD would come up on the horizon for us PC hardcores but Ive finally accepted the truth that there wont be at least for another couple years.


Did the same thing. Traded my buddy my Fx-8350 and 990fx mobo plus $200 for his 3770k and Asus Maximus mobo. Been very happy with the results so far.


----------



## MacLeod

Only thing that makes me hesitate is I just reinstalled my OS when I bought my Evo SSD and it was kind of a pain to get all my games back and everything especially with Origin. Thinking about having to do all that again makes me want to just take the easy way out and just drop an 8350 in there and then overclock its guts out. Maybe get a new PSU to replace my aging TX750 too. I dont know yet. Disappointment vs laziness. Hmmmmm......


----------



## Pro3ootector

Keller stated in an interview with Rage3D that "AMD are on track to catch up on high performance cores", so he is confident that the performance gap will not be around for very long.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/K7-K8-Inventor-Back-at-AMD-Prepares-Excavator-for-2015-441617.shtml

Jim Keller is also the creator of a A6/A7 chips form Apple. He is the "FX" man.

They are not giving up on high performence cpu cores


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> Keller stated in an interview with Rage3D that "AMD are on track to catch up on high performance cores", so he is confident that the performance gap will not be around for very long.
> 
> http://news.softpedia.com/news/K7-K8-Inventor-Back-at-AMD-Prepares-Excavator-for-2015-441617.shtml
> 
> Jim Keller is also the creator of a A6/A7 chips form Apple. He is the "FX" man.
> 
> They are not giving up on high performence cpu cores


Which is the point if hsa huma mantle and apus.. the cores will help but since they are ground breaking the othe tech minus apu technically intel did that.. but who know


----------



## Pro3ootector

I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea of what AMD is doing. And my guess is there might be a surprise after all.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea of what AMD is doing. And my guess is there might be a surprise after all.


There normally is.. PD just corrected the bad hype that was BD and SR has pretty much shown that they are only getting better and the APUs are really barely starting to mature..

it is more in wait.. What can intel really do make a few tweaks to get 5% at best improvements and then a die shrink for power consumption... yeah it helps but their node is almost a grandfather any more


----------



## Pro3ootector

TSMC 28nm is equal to Intel's 22nm, compassion to Vishera is pointless.
Both 7850k and Core i3 use the same amount of electricity. I would never buy a Core i3 there is a HSA, GCN all cool stuff 7850k to chose, and it's unlocked and everything so why even bother with i3? I think of people who actually buy it a brand only oriented consumers..


----------



## Jared2608

Or they live in a country where the i3 is vastly cheaper than the 7850K.


----------



## NuclearPeace

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> TSMC 28nm is equal to Intel's 22nm, compassion to Vishera is pointless.
> Both 7850k and Core i3 use the same amount of electricity. I would never buy a Core i3 there is a HSA, GCN all cool stuff 7850k to chose, and it's unlocked and everything so why even bother with i3? I think of people who actually buy it a brand only oriented consumers..


The thing is though even the most expensive i3 is still cheaper than the 7850k for most people and it destroys the 7850k in CPU benchmarks. If you want the 7860K for HSA and/or a good IGP, then that is a different story.

I can get the i3 4340 and the 7850K for the same price ($129) at Microcenter. I'm going to get the 7850K for the IGP though since I don't play very demanding games. If I do decide to upgrade, at least I have a good enough CPU at gaming and HSA support.


----------



## F3ERS 2 ASH3S

Probably the wrong place to put it however it is kind of relevant..

With Mantle and HSA, does that mean that it is going to be less restrictive to multiple GPUs later one.. aka mix matching?


----------



## hartofwave

Is there any news on asynchronous crossfire for SR or EX APUs?


----------



## Olivon

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Papadope*
> 
> Why are you guys so confident Carrizo will be 20nm or 14nm? I can't see them changing nodes that quickly.


My guess is that Carrizo is still 28nm chip, right.


----------



## Seronx

All new 2015 SoCs will be using 20nm with an ambidextrous uncore.


New definitions;
APUs = SoCs w/ Intergrated GPUs
SoCs = Does not have an integrated GPU.


----------



## nitrubbb

Whats this project SkyBridge, I thought kaveri successor would be carizzo? Will it come to FM2+?

e: read up a bit, I thought x86 and ARM would be on the same chip or something lol


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> Whats this project SkyBridge


Sky*bridge* is the fusion of the North*bridge* and South*bridge* and is ambidextrous towards x86/ARM SoCs and x86/ARM APUs. Skybridge will be integrated to the chip's silicon and will be shared across APUs and SoCs.

Same uncore IP = Same socket.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> I thought kaveri successor would be carizzo?


Kaveri's successor is Carrizo.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> Will it come to FM2+?


Carrizo will be on these sockets; FM2+, FP4, SP2.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *nitrubbb*
> 
> e: read up a bit, I thought x86 and ARM would be on the same chip or something lol


There will be a semi-custom ambidextrous game console with Puma+/Cortex-A57/Graphic Core Next cores. AMD hasn't announced who it was for though.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There will be a semi-custom ambidextrous game console with Puma+/Cortex-A57/Graphic Core Next cores. AMD hasn't announced who it was for though.


my bets are on Valve..


----------



## tjwolf88

I've heard a rumor where the arm cores would be able to analyze code and send instructions to both cpu and gpu allowing for a forced HSA.


----------



## Pro3ootector

Im just wondering, is Apple interested in HSA? That would make a killer iMac platform with HSA optimazed OS. There wold be absolutley no competition for that. And there is already a
Red Hat - HSA optimized Linux.


----------



## cantoboi

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *tjwolf88*
> 
> I've heard a rumor where the arm cores would be able to analyze code and send instructions to both cpu and gpu allowing for a forced HSA.


You mean this?
http://wccftech.com/amd-developing-generation-apu-x86-cheetah-arm-cores-features-gcn-20-cores-hsa-support/
Hope this is true and not rumors.


----------



## Pro3ootector

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cantoboi*
> 
> You mean this?
> http://wccftech.com/amd-developing-generation-apu-x86-cheetah-arm-cores-features-gcn-20-cores-hsa-support/
> Hope this is true and not rumors.


It's official, no confirmation on ARM core with instruction analyse tough.


----------



## Seronx

wccftech isn't an accurate source for information. You'll have to find their source which might be, legitimate or illegitimate. Legitimate being the actual source and illegitimate which is sourcing another source. I would say wccftech is more half accurate than completely accurate.

2014 - Separate µarchitectures on separate sockets.
2015 - Separate µarchitectures on same sockets.
2016+ - Similar µarchitectures on same sockets.

Next gen "Cat" cores will be designed side by side with a custom ultra low power ARM 64-bit µarch. This does not mean that the x86 cores and ARM cores will be on the same die. It means that you can expect similar performance between the two architectures. So, instead of completing rewriting your code for different architectures with different ISAs. You'll get to write code for similar architectures with different ISAs which probably reduces the porting cost.

Partitioned Steamroller based on the leaked imgur/discus module.


https://i.imgur.com/bE57sfv.png

Here is the units unlabeled. The only area really off from my conversion of Steamroller(Imgur) to Steamroller(Actual) is the front-end. The L1i, Predecode, Decode, and the first Instruction Fetch are not to proportion or near where they should be. Everything else works out being near extremely perfectly aligned. I was expecting most of the stuff to be misaligned as I did the front-end first. After the cores and FPU, I was surprised how aligned it was.


----------



## imran27

AMD is now working on a 16-core part with full uncore having native PCIe 3.0 root support, and many other features that were well sought by the enthusiasts, this chip will be on servers, with a hope that an 8-core version will come to desktop as well.

@Seronx any idea about this???


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *imran27*
> 
> AMD is now working on a 16-core part with full uncore having native PCIe 3.0 root support, and many other features that were well sought by the enthusiasts, this chip will be on servers, with a hope that an 8-core version will come to desktop as well.
> 
> @Seronx any idea about this???


Actually, I've been going through decoding all the typos and errors.

- 16 Excavator cores / 8 Excavator modules
- Integrated Northbridge
- Integrated Southbridge + Freedom Fabric Gen2
- Integrated Voltage Regulator (

US2013257525A1.pdf 800k .pdf file
)
- 256-bit DDR4
- Two 16x cHT 4.0 - Northbridge (For 2P and 4P setups)
- Two 16x cHT 4.0 // PCIe 4.0 (GFX) - Northbridge (For coherent accelerators)
- One 16x PCIe 3.0/4.0 (GPP) - Southbridge (For extra ports look to external Southswitch)

Under IHS; (The IHS will be made of a new material that has better heat conductivity)
CPU SoC ASIC and various IVR related stuff

So, far the only difference between the Intel's iVR and AMD's iVR. Is that AMD's version can take the full 12V rail and convert it down to the x volts needed in a singular step. No motherboard VRMs but this makes the CPU pin count abnormally large since the iVR needs inputs and grounds.

Intel's iVR solution;
12 volts to x VccIn (Really Efficient) -> x VccIn to processor voltage (Not Efficient)

AMD's iVR solution;
x Volts Input (HVdd) to x Volts Output(RVdd) (Really Efficient)

External Southswitch by ASMedia:
- SATA 3.2, SATA Express
- USB 3.1
- 10 GbE

Any delay will be related to PCIe 4.0 not to the architecture itself.

My guess for the power range for this new CPU is;
Mobile Workstation (35W - 55W)
Low Server/Low HPC (65W - 115W)
Workstation/Enthusiast (125W - 150W)
High HPC/High Server/Super Enthusiast (180W - 220W)

Enthusiast and Super Enthusiast = FX
Mobile/Low HPC/Workstation/High HPC = Opteron

Carrizo is mostly just a port down to 20-nm from Kaveri and will not have PCIe 4.0. The mainstream PCIe 4.0 is not to be expected till Basilisk.

The only left now is find out if it is launching with Carrizo or Basilisk or in between the two.


----------



## sdlvx

@seronx, clearly this is a new socket, but will it be the same one that K12 will use? They're not going to s939 us, are they?

Wikipedia is claiming 2014 or 2015 for final spec of PCIe 4.0. So it does line up with what you're claiming.

http://www.hypertransport.org/docs/uploads/Latency_Overview_and_Comparisons.pdf

I found that. It is kind of old. But it is interesting in how they are discussing HPC applications and how to minimize latency.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> @seronx, clearly this is a new socket, but will it be the same one that K12 will use? They're not going to s939 us, are they?


This socket will be used till AMD goes to CNFETs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube_field-effect_transistor
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Wikipedia is claiming 2014 or 2015 for final spec of PCIe 4.0. So it does line up with what you're claiming.


PCIE/HT Combo PHY Patent
https://www.google.com/patents/WO2012138550A1

AMD could do what Intel did with the X79 and use an early specification of PCIe 4.0. While escaping Intel, using Hypertransport 4.0 for AMD graphics.
Quote:


> A first connector portion (e.g., portion 402) includes contacts to support a PCIE slot (e.g., 16 lanes). A second connector portion (e.g., portion 404) includes additional contacts for additional signals (e.g., four lanes for HyperTransport and sideband signals) required by the HyperTransport slot.




PCIE/HTX 4.0 is incompatible with HTX 3.1 and older versions since it is no longer a flipped unit.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> @seronx, clearly this is a new socket, but will it be the same one that K12 will use? They're not going to s939 us, are they?
> 
> 
> 
> This socket will be used till AMD goes to CNFETs.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube_field-effect_transistor
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Wikipedia is claiming 2014 or 2015 for final spec of PCIe 4.0. So it does line up with what you're claiming.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> PCIE/HT Combo PHY Patent
> https://www.google.com/patents/WO2012138550A1
> 
> AMD could do what Intel did with the X79 and use an early specification of PCIe 4.0. While escaping Intel, using Hypertransport 4.0 for AMD graphics.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> A first connector portion (e.g., portion 402) includes contacts to support a PCIE slot (e.g., 16 lanes). A second connector portion (e.g., portion 404) includes additional contacts for additional signals (e.g., four lanes for HyperTransport and sideband signals) required by the HyperTransport slot.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Well, HTX slot existed already but it was last really modified in 2008. So this is definitely some sort of new slot.

The old HTX slot had a PCIe 16x slot with a PCIe 1x slot in front for additional power. It looks really similar to the new patent, I'm a little confused.

http://www.hypertransport.org/docs/uploads/HTX3_vs_PCIe_Gen2.pdf


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Well, HTX slot existed already but it was last really modified in 2008. So this is definitely some sort of new slot.




1st - HTX
2nd/3rd - PCIe

If you notice the old HTX slot is PCIE flipped + side band. This new slot is PCI-E(normal orientation) (AC) + HT Lane(flipped orientation from HTX) (DC).

AMD can support PCIE 4.0 or Hypertransport 4.0 using the same slot infrastructure. Where HTX 3.1/HTX tried to compete with PCIE and soon where HTX 4.0 is an extension of PCIE.

It is actually pretty convenient that HT has a maximum data packet size of 64 Bytes which just happens to the same size for HSAIL AQLs. The new Volcanic Islands series Maui/Tonga/Iceland all have ACE F32 units which are HSA packet processors.

HSAIL AQLs have three types of packets;
Dispatch
Agent Dispatch
Barrier

All of them are a max of 64Bs, a low latency and fast interconnect with cache coherency would be needed. For extending HSA to discrete GPUs, which would allow dGPUs not to become irrelevant.


----------



## hartofwave

Can the 1x PCIe lane in the front be used as just a PCIe lane or only as part of HTX? The only issue I see with a new slot is adoption and compatability, I think people like PCIe just working with every thing these days, but if it's backwards compatible in someway that would be a great boon for vendors adopting it.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *hartofwave*
> 
> Can the 1x PCIe lane in the front be used as just a PCIe lane or only as part of HTX? The only issue I see with a new slot is adoption and compatability, I think people like PCIe just working with every thing these days, but if it's backwards compatible in someway that would be a great boon for vendors adopting it.


The side band is part of the HT interconnect and it is mostly used for control.


605 = Integrated PCIE/Hypertransport interface
616/618 = Circuit board traces for the control link portion of the Hypertransport Link.
612/614 = Circuit board traces for the PCIE interconnect and data link portion of the Hypertransport Link.
620 = Circuit that allows for the link to be either PCI Express (AC-Coupled) or Hypertransport (DC-Coupled) but not both at the same time.

AMD achieves backwards support for PCI Express if the peripheral does not use the new Hypertransport link protocol.


----------



## Pro3ootector

Ok so there is a posibility for a A8-7500x2 that would be 8 core steamroller CPU we are waiting for, APU that is, with killer graphics and everything. AMD did that before with Athlon 64 x2, it was an MXM design and a absolutley best procesor of it's time.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> Ok so there is a posibility for a A8-7500x2 that would be 8 core steamroller CPU we are waiting for, APU that is, with killer graphics and everything. AMD did that before with Athlon 64 x2, it was an MXM design and a absolutley best procesor of it's time.


Don't get my hopes up for AMD to release a dual die Steamroller design. You're making me think they would take all the Kaveri APUs that had fail yields for GPU and had a decent CPU and putting them on AM3+ as a dual die solution.

The best GPU reject APU I can see on newegg is Athlon 760k at $80. I guess if AMD could put two of those together and sell them at $200 as a new FX CPU they'd be getting better margins.

It seems awfully unlikely but it could happen, maybe. It'd be kind of funny to see AMD backtrack like that after Phenom and going real quad core is so much better!", but they're probably going to have to backtrack on the whole "muh ghz!" thing when x86 K12 sister shows up anyways.


----------



## Seronx

AMD is leaving multi-chip modules instead they are divulging into 3D stacking. This isn't supported with the current generation sockets.

Also, HSA : http://www.slideshare.net/hsafoundation/hsa-platform-system-architecture-specification-provisional-verl-10-ratifed


----------



## Pro3ootector

So new FX desktop chips!! Is that am3, 8 core FX?


----------



## imran27

A new socket most probably


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> So new FX desktop chips!! Is that am3, 8 core FX?


New FX chips, next year on the successor of G34/G2012. It will have 16 cores and will be <$500 when launched.


----------



## Ashura

$500!!?? Seriously?

Also, is it confirmed that Am3+ will be discontinued ?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ashura*
> 
> $500!!?? Seriously?


AMD is aiming to increase the average selling price for their processors. This is done by cramming more devices on to the die that would be a discrete IC on the motherboard. AMD might also be increasing the value of a product by adding; AIO water coolers, gaming evolved games, exclusive deals(memory/motherboard combos), etc. So the price of <$500 + <$300 for the absolute best SKU plus best motherboard can be deferred by all the extra inclusions.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ashura*
> 
> Also, is it confirmed that Am3+ will be discontinued ?


The AM3+ motherboards will be supported till 2018. While, there will not be any new significant SKUs to the platform.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> New FX chips, next year on the successor of G34/G2012. It will have 16 cores and will be <$500 when launched.


Will it be an apu. If so how many graphis cores and how will it copmare to the Kaveri 7850 graphics power?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> Will it be an apu.


There will be an APU and a CPU. Both of which will be similar except for differences in CPU core counts and if it has a GPU or not.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *os2wiz*
> 
> If so how many graphis cores and how will it copmare to the Kaveri 7850 graphics power?


As of right now the GPU should perform the same to better. (I don't want to say something and be wrong because AMD disabled half the GPU. Simply, because AMD couldn't release a board with quad-channel support.)

If you read the software optimization guide for the 15h familly. You'll see this line;
Integrated DDR3 memory controller (two in some models) with memory prefetcher

This should actually just be;
Integrated memory controller (two in some models) with memory prefetcher

The reason is that future models in 15h will have a HBM interface and a DDR4 interface. This is included in both the CPU version and the APU version. This will be only for one to two generations of Excavator or 15h family 50h-6Fh models. After that AMD will be going to mountain peak modules with x86 or xxh family xxh-xFh models.

The next-gen APU platform is related to F/F+/G3/C32/C2012.
The next-gen CPU platform is related to G34/G2012.

What socket G3 looked like;



Socket G34 looks the same but has a lot more pins. The space where the second chip will be the HBM stack.

G34 bottom;


Multi-chip modules are dead but it will be eventually replaced by 3D logic stacking. The higher dies will not have physical interconnects(PCIe, HBM, DDR4, Hypertransport etc) and will be daisy chaining(Through-silicon via) from the lowest die. If that particular technology will be used on the same socket as one without 3D logic.


----------



## Undervolter

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> There will be an APU and a CPU.


Hello. Forgive the ignorance, as i haven't followed closely the forum in the past, so i don't know whether you are an AMD representative or you have sources in the industry or else, but since i see you are certain of future projects, is there any chance there will be a retail 8 core 95W for AM3+? Currently there is 8300, but it's OEM and unless you order it from half the globe away (S. Korea) in ebay, there is no way to get one.


----------



## Seronx

I'm not related to the industry and I don't think AMD will be releasing a 95W 8-core via retail.

If you wanted something in the low TDP range your best bet is the Opteron series.
OS3380OLW8KHK -> 8-core 65W TDP but has a $230 cost.


----------



## agrims

But can you overclock it???


----------



## Undervolter

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> I'm not related to the industry and I don't think AMD will be releasing a 95W 8-core via retail.
> 
> If you wanted something in the low TDP range your best bet is the Opteron series.
> OS3380OLW8KHK -> 8-core 65W TDP but has a $230 cost.


Thank you. Unfortunately, at 2.6 Ghz, it's weaker than an FX6300 at stock... But thanks anyway.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *agrims*
> 
> But can you overclock it???


If you can put it into an enthusiast board, you can bus overclock.

But you could just undervolt and underclock an AM3+ chip and lower the TDP anyways. So it's sort of a moot point.


----------



## Themisseble

good move from ADm would be releasing x6 core athlon (maybe l3 cache added) steamroller for FM2+ ...


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> good move from ADm would be releaseing x6 core athlon (maybe l3 cached added) steamroller for FM2+ ...


Not gonna happen. L3 takes as much space as the integrated GPU. For that I would think they would put it on AM3+.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Not gonna happen. L3 takes as much space as the integrated GPU. For that I would think they would put it on AM3+.


no need to make huge L3 cache ...


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Not gonna happen. L3 takes as much space as the integrated GPU. For that I would think they would put it on AM3+.
> 
> 
> 
> no need to make huge L3 cache ...
Click to expand...

I don't think you understand. It's just big period. the GPU on an FM2+ CPU takes up around 50% all by its self. There is no room for L3 period.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I don't think you understand. It's just big period. the GPU on an FM2+ CPU takes up around 50% all by its self. There is no room for L3 period.


You didnt understand me. Why athlon x6 steamroller without GPU? FM2+ is more attractive, because you can upgrade.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> You didnt understand me. Why athlon x6 steamroller without GPU? FM2+ is more attractive, because you can upgrade.


It's not as simple as just removing the GPU off the die and replacing them with modules. They could put two, maybe four more modules on the die if that were the case. But do you see how badly the clocks dropped, and how sharply the TDP rises above 4ghz on 28nmSHP BULK? Imagine more modules, the clocks would drop even further to maintain a 95W or even 125W TDP. OC'ing potential would be a bust and the chip would be pointless. Not to mention this chip would require a separate production line from the main, singular one, which wouldn't be suitable for laptops/mobile, and the profit margins would be abysmal. AMD doesn't have the kind of money to do stuff like that anymore. That's why there's no Kaveri configurations with more than two modules. It'd be a disaster.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> no need to make huge L3 cache ...


The need of L3 is to reduce the need of a huge interface which has high latency.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> It's not as simple as just removing the GPU off the die and replacing them with modules. They could put two, maybe four more modules on the die if that were the case. But do you see how badly the clocks dropped, and how sharply the TDP rises above 4ghz on 28nmSHP BULK? Imagine more modules, the clocks would drop even further to maintain a 95W or even 125W TDP. OC'ing potential would be a bust and the chip would be pointless. Not to mention this chip would require a separate production line from the main, singular one, which wouldn't be suitable for laptops/mobile, and the profit margins would be abysmal. AMD doesn't have the kind of money to do stuff like that anymore. That's why there's no Kaveri configurations with more than two modules. It'd be a disaster.


AMD changed the way they built CPUs and classy AMD always blames GlobalFoundries. So does everyone else and consumers which is silly. The actual cause of the lower performance is compiled macros. There was also a lower amount of high performance flops in Steamroller in comparison to Bulldozer.

Okay, there was more causes than this and all(100%) to majority(80%) of them are AMD's fault.


----------



## yrettete

I honestly think they should scrap Steamroller and concentrate on doing something else completely.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Too late to scrap it, since it's already out in the market. They aren't working on it anymore because it was completed ages ago. Excavator is pretty much done, and they already have the new K12 uarch along with its x86 sister core coming for 2016, which began development circa 2012.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Is there anything known about excavator process prospect?


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> I honestly think they should scrap Steamroller and concentrate on doing something else completely.


Why? That means they'd have to kill Kaveri, which uses the Steamroller core. You're basically suggesting that AMD commit corporate seppuku, by making their most modern platform unviable.


----------



## yrettete

The fact that AMD still cannot beat a 3570 shows how far behind they are.

Maybe the 9570 ? but who is going to buy that ?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> The fact that AMD still cannot beat a 3570 shows how far behind they are.
> 
> Maybe the 9570 ? but who is going to buy that ?


Everyone is well aware how far behind AMD is in the CPU department. No amount of wishes and magic will change that, however.


----------



## Tivan

Hey the 8 cores have a nice price point c; (especially the 8320s on ebay...) But it's true that intel has 50-100% more power clock for clock on single thread. Oh well. At the same time, piledriver isn't exactly new, so looking forward to what AMD can do with their new architecture when it releases in 2 years.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Too late to scrap it, since it's already out in the market. They aren't working on it anymore because it was completed ages ago. Excavator is pretty much done, and they already have the new K12 uarch along with its x86 sister core coming for 2016, which began development circa 2012.


The x86 sister core has not started yet actually. Well it should start around late this year maybe early next year.

Steamroller (Generic) = 2011
Excavator (Generic) = 2012
Steamroller Rev B = Q2 2012 - Q2 2013
Excavator Rev B = Q3 2013 - Q4 2014
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Is there anything known about excavator process prospect?


Excavator is 20-nm LPM/SOC with AVFS, HBM, etc.

AVFS = Process-aware(Adapative) Voltage Scaling and Frequency Scaling.

Essentially, the voltage will run at the lowest it would need to run at a given frequency.


----------



## Pro3ootector

So Carizo is Excavator, and rumors sugest it is a 28nm part. Is there other excavator chip?


----------



## Pro3ootector

https://translate.google.pl/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitsandchips.it%2F9-hardware%2F4600-apu-carrizo-e-le-stacked-dram-un-matrimonio-possibile&edit-text=&act=url

this


----------



## yrettete

You may as well just get a cheaper and older Ivy Bridge processor like a 3570. It's still better than all the new AMD processors.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> You may as well just get a cheaper and older Ivy Bridge processor like a 3570. It's still better than all the new AMD processors.


Exactly what I did. I went from a fx 8350 to i7 3770k. Huge world of difference to me.


----------



## cssorkinman

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *DapperDan795*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> You may as well just get a cheaper and older Ivy Bridge processor like a 3570. It's still better than all the new AMD processors.
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly what I did. I went from a fx 8350 to i7 3770k. Huge world of difference to me.
Click to expand...

Yes, $120 more for the Intel.

I have both , I like the FX much better than the 3770k.
Sure the 3770K scores better in some benches, but without those scores, I'd never see it's advantage. On the other hand the FX is much quicker for what I do in daily usage, which I see every time I power the system on.


----------



## DapperDan795

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *cssorkinman*
> 
> Yes, $120 more for the Intel.
> 
> I have both , I like the FX much better than the 3770k.
> Sure the 3770K scores better in some benches, but without those scores, I'd never see it's advantage. On the other hand the FX is much quicker for what I do in daily usage, which I see every time I power the system on.


Well in my case it was a much better deal. Buddy sold me his 3770k and Maximus IV mobo for $250 total cause he upgraded to Haswell. I see the biggest difference in WoW and Company of Heroes 2 over the Fx. Outside of that I do agree it's not a huge jump. but I play those games a ton.


----------



## yrettete

the g3258 is the AMD killer.

plus it has massive upgrade potential unlike the AMD socket


----------



## os2wiz

It does NOT have massive upgrade potential, once Haswell is finished there will be a new socket for the next generation. Haswell has very minimal performance improvements over IvY Bridge just as IVY Briddge had very small improvements over Sandy Bridge.You are in the wrong thread to be touting Intel here.


----------



## chrisjames61

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> You may as well just get a cheaper and older Ivy Bridge processor like a 3570. It's still better than all the new AMD processors.


This is a thread about Steamroller speculation. No where in the thread title is Intel mentioned. Why do you have to thread crap? Take the trolling elsewhere please.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> the g3258 is the AMD killer.
> 
> plus it has massive upgrade potential unlike the AMD socket


By massive upgrade potential you mean the massive price for a new motherboard right? AMD has just stopped with its desktop productions and moved on to all APU. Every time Intel puts out a new line it has a new socket, where as with AMD they drop new CPU on the same socket a few times.


----------



## deepor

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> By massive upgrade potential you mean the massive price for a new motherboard right? AMD has just stopped with its desktop productions and moved on to all APU. Every time Intel puts out a new line it has a new socket, where as with AMD they drop new CPU on the same socket a few times.


He meant the G3258 is a crappy dual core CPU so the upgrade potential is a quad core CPU.


----------



## yawa

Yeah not for anything, I'm all pro AMD all the time, everywhere, but the best part about grabbing that chip is the fact that if he took advantage of the bundle deal at Microcenter recently and grabbed a Z97 Mobo with his Pentium G3258, her certainly could easily grab a 4790k down the road (especially after Broadwell launches and the inevitable price cut happens), just drop it in, and get a huge performance boost.

Truth is, the sale Intel did a few weeks ago on the Devil's Canyon/Pentium/Z97 Boards was absurd. Even I couldn't ignore it. I basically got the 4790k + Z97 Motherboard for $359.99 Total (Chip was $279 Board was $80 More), which I'm pretty sure was a direct reaction of the retailer as to how pissed people are at the constant Platform changes for Intel.

I debated taking advantage of it all weekend, was about to say no as I realized I would be able to just afford, but wouldn't have money left over for a Waterblock when fate intervened (I won $500 on a scratch ticket totally out of the blue) and made my way to Microcenter.

Anyway not to get too much off topic, I just think it's worth pointing out in his defense that if he got that bundle deal during the big sale the other weekend (It's still going on, but the Mobo prices have come up significantly since then so it's not as good a deal as that first weekend) I could totally believe he only spent $160 total on the Pentium + Mobo. Which would indeed be a steal, if for no other reason than he could grab a 4790k down the road and benefit huge from it.


----------



## Himo5

So far as speculation about Excavator is concerned one point which I haven't seen made is that by the time it gets to market all the premium FM2+ board prices will have dropped by really significant amounts. By now, for example, people who got boards where reliability was given up for performance, can already get the rock solid Asus A88X-Pro here in the UK for far less than £100, even with shipping, when it wasn't available for less than £140 (with shipping) 6 months ago.


----------



## os2wiz

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yawa*
> 
> Yeah not for anything, I'm all pro AMD all the time, everywhere, but the best part about grabbing that chip is the fact that if he took advantage of the bundle deal at Microcenter recently and grabbed a Z97 Mobo with his Pentium G3258, her certainly could easily grab a 4790k down the road (especially after Broadwell launches and the inevitable price cut happens), just drop it in, and get a huge performance boost.
> 
> Truth is, the sale Intel did a few weeks ago on the Devil's Canyon/Pentium/Z97 Boards was absurd. Even I couldn't ignore it. I basically got the 4790k + Z97 Motherboard for $359.99 Total (Chip was $279 Board was $80 More), which I'm pretty sure was a direct reaction of the retailer as to how pissed people are at the constant Platform changes for Intel.
> 
> I debated taking advantage of it all weekend, was about to say no as I realized I would be able to just afford, but wouldn't have money left over for a Waterblock when fate intervened (I won $500 on a scratch ticket totally out of the blue) and made my way to Microcenter.
> 
> Anyway not to get too much off topic, I just think it's worth pointing out in his defense that if he got that bundle deal during the big sale the other weekend (It's still going on, but the Mobo prices have come up significantly since then so it's not as good a deal as that first weekend) I could totally believe he only spent $160 total on the Pentium + Mobo. Which would indeed be a steal, if for no other reason than he could grab a 4790k down the road and benefit huge from it.


I and others have pointed ou that this Intel discussion is way off topic, hut jokers like you persist in keeping it going. I am reporting this to the moderator. I hope some suspensions result.


----------



## yawa

You're joking right?

For real? The guy who ran a 7850k with a 290x is a jokster trying to ruin this thread? Do you have any idea the nonsense you are implying right now?

All I did was see that someone mentioned a Pentium, pointed out the price comparison, and got criticized for it by you. I just dropped some 411 on it because people are grossly unaware of cost apparently. Wasn't aware there was an active boycott about it.

Also technically every single time you talk about excavator, you're off topic as well.

Listen Captain Thought Police, this is flat out one of the oldest, most enduring threads on this site, and it has gone off topic 1,000 times since it's inception. As a matter of fact, I've spent more time on topic in this thread than most people do on this entire site.

But y'know what, you go report all the posts that make you upset. I just hope you don't get suspended for wasting the mods time


----------



## acheleg

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> By massive upgrade potential you mean the massive price for a new motherboard right? AMD has just stopped with its desktop productions and moved on to all APU. Every time Intel puts out a new line it has a new socket, where as with AMD they drop new CPU on the same socket a few times.


there is quite a bit of disagreement whether to go with the AM or FM platforms, among amd avids, and much speculation over which socket type will emerge to be the only amd cpu type, and the considerations about 'upgrade capabilities" in regards to possible cpu's of the future is only worth thought due to the fact that EVERY new AMD socket since AM+ has shared backwards compatibility with the previous gen socket.

just try to think about the large number of totally-incompatible sockets intel has released and discontinued just among the i-core chips.

and, finally, compare the average life of an i-core socket to the life which LGA 775 enjoyed.


----------



## acheleg

im pretty sure that the 9XXK BE's were bulldoxer-based FM2 chips, with the apu's disabled- so, it does stand to reason that steamroller could be tuned to fit either the AM or FM socket, with future socket revisions. if steamroller used less voltage, a 100 watt FM2+ socket might support 6-8cpu cores at a decent frequency.


----------



## acheleg

now, more to this current topic deviation- overclocking is ALWAYS about getting more out of your hardware than for what you actually paid.

some may have an unlimited budget, but are concerned with where they think hardware NEEDS to be for software that is still 7 years off in the future, as opposed to the specs of the current flagship hardware offerings.

then, there are those who just want a more than adequate system with hardware that specs as less-than-adequate- those of us on a real world budget today, but with plans to thoroughly upgrade OR replace in a realistic time frame, such as every 3 years.


----------



## X-Alt

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *acheleg*
> 
> compare the average life of an i-core socket to the life which LGA 775 enjoyed.


Its hillarious how many times Intel has switched between sockets, 1366, and 2011 for enthusiasts and 1156, 1155, 1150 for the lower end over the course of just four years while 775 lived a happy life as an (almost) universal socket from 2004 to 2010..


----------



## jsc1973

LGA775 wasn't really totally universal. Not all LGA775 implementations can support all CPU's that have that pinout; for example, the vast majority of Pentium 4 boards can't take a C2D, and some can't even take a later P4 revision. Intel just kept using the same pinout and creating incompatibilities in the chipset. Now they change the pin signaling and positioning of a handful of pins and make them incompatible that way.

AMD and Intel both can pretty much maintain socket compatibility or break it at will. The fact that Intel at one point was going to put Xeon and Itanium on the same socket tells you all you need to know. If an x86-64 and a radically different EPIC CPU could share the same chipset and socket, then there's no reason two x86-64 ones can't. In some cases, there are good reasons not to shoehorn a new design into the old pinout, but a company can make it work if they want to. The only exceptions would be trying to run APU's on AM3+, which wouldn't be possible because AM3+ lacks the support for an iGPU, or trying to run server CPU's with double-digit core counts (especially Opterons) on consumer sockets, which would be too small and likely not able to deliver enough power.


----------



## Blameless

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> LGA775 wasn't really totally universal. Not all LGA775 implementations can support all CPU's that have that pinout; for example, the vast majority of Pentium 4 boards can't take a C2D, and some can't even take a later P4 revision. Intel just kept using the same pinout and creating incompatibilities in the chipset.


Changes to the VRM specifications, much more so than the chipsets, are what led to these incompatibilities. They had a fairly major update to the LGA-775 power delivery guidelines for Core 2, but didn't change the physical socket.


----------



## Pro3ootector

"CORE is back" Means it's a new APU.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-launches-core-is-back-campaign-readies-mysterious-apu-launch/

Evolution of cores?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Pro3ootector*
> 
> "CORE is back" Means it's a new APU.
> 
> http://www.kitguru.net/components/apu-components/anton-shilov/amd-launches-core-is-back-campaign-readies-mysterious-apu-launch/
> 
> Evolution of cores?


It's just Carrizo. Closer-knit integration of CPU + GPU. Kaveri was the architectural integration of HSA, whereas Carrizo is the hardware integration of HSA, i.e. "Full HSA". Evolution = that. Last year's video had White (CPU cores) and Red (Radeon cores). This one shows a hybrid guy who has features from both.


----------



## Pro3ootector

Than why truck get a 12 core cores?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Bad marketing, that's why.









4 CPU cores + 8 GPU cores = 12 "Compute Cores".


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

kaveri refresh... not holding my breath on this one... still salty about launch price kaveri/performance ratio


----------



## Themisseble

D
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Bad marketing, that's why.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 4 CPU cores + 8 GPU cores = 12 "Compute Cores".


kaveri is not bad... Yes, compare FPU, but when you compare Integer score...

What AMD did wrong is "pricing" Kaveri.
Why FM2+ is not good ?
You cant upgrade to a six 6 core CPU. So what should AMD do?

A10 7700K/7850K under 100$/120$... then they should made 6 core steamroller with 2 GCN cores and some L3...


----------



## Seronx

Kaveri is FSA 0.85.


Carrizo is HSA 1.00.


----------



## Themisseble

carrizo will feature excavator with better FPUs that may change a lot of things... As you can see that Steamroller made only smaller FPU and still little faster than piledrivers.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Kaveri is FSA 0.85.
> 
> 
> Carrizo is HSA 1.00.


so in your rather educated and almost psychic opinion... what is all this Core is back stuff? Kaveri Refresh or promo campaign for Carrizo?


----------



## Seronx

"CORE" is back is probably the marketing campaign stuff from Richland. Both Carrizo and Richland are named after Creeks rather than Rivers.

This is most likely a promo campaign for Carrizo which house;
Excavator cores with the Bulldozer version 4 ISA.
Volcanic Island cores with the Volcanic Islands ISA.

There are patents from both AMD and Intel regarding a co-processor interface and an exo-skeleton ISA.

The exo-skeleton ISA is a virtual instruction set that both the CPU and GPU can execute.

The co-processor interface is something to improve CPU and GPU cross talk. Extending, the FPU functionality to a heterogeneous unit with increased capabilities. I do not expect this to be implemented in AMD's micro-architecture till ~2017.

Most of these enhancements that are to come are already part of ARM. So none of it is actually new just AMD using their own custom protocols.


----------



## Themisseble

steamroller is comming
http://wccftech.com/amd-readies-steamroller-based-a47300-athlon-x4-860k-840-athlon-x2-450-fx8370-am3processors-q3-2014/

AM3 +; FM2+
Athlons, FX, APUs
- maybe fake but stil... FX 8370 is pilledriver (what a shame)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Steamroller is coming? Lol Steamroller already arrived back in January.

I really don't see the reason for new Piledriver chips, but it is what it is.


----------



## Undervolter

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> steamroller is comming
> http://wccftech.com/amd-readies-steamroller-based-a47300-athlon-x4-860k-840-athlon-x2-450-fx8370-am3processors-q3-2014/
> 
> AM3 +; FM2+
> Athlons, FX, APUs
> - maybe fake but stil... FX 8370 is pilledriver (what a shame)


Quote:


> The FX-8370 will replace the FX-8350 as the flagship AM3+ processor while there's also a hint that AMD will launch the FX-8310 processor. Both processors will be based on the existing Piledriver core architecture and will be Eight Core models featuring 125W and 95W TDP respectively.


8310 95W???? 3.4Ghz i guess? Oh yeah, come to papa Undervolter! God, i hope this is true, i will be all over this CPU!!! My final upgrade on AM3+! Please AMD, please! Undervolted, this will be something like 80W 8-core.


----------



## heroxoot

8370 is probably just going to be another OC'd 8350. Hopefully they enhance it more but I have doubts.


----------



## Undervolter

Is this real????

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=13798552179

God, i hope it won't be an OEM piece again that nobody can find!


----------



## Kuivamaa

The process FX is made is very mature now, If they can get higher clocks within the same thermal envelope then why not? As long as the price remains in check that is...


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

there is all of 25$ difference between (at least at my shop) between 8350 and 9370 so where is it going to sit??

4.2 ghz/4.5 or 4.6 boost for 13$ more then an 8350?

sounds like they are trying to clear up all the chips they can


----------



## Overkill

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Undervolter*
> 
> Is this real????
> 
> http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=13798552179
> 
> God, i hope it won't be an OEM piece again that nobody can find!


The AMD 95w 8-core is undervolted and underclocked from the factory. AMD is notorious for overvolting their chips for the given speeds they ship with just to make sure no problems. The BD/PD architecture actually does downclock and undervolt pretty well (just look at all their mobile chips). This particular chip wont overclock any better than any other on the same process node. Its nothing like how Intel bins their Xeons to better metrics.


----------



## imran27

The ASUS CPU support page for A88X PRO does mention Athlon 860K...

I think the rumor might be true.


----------



## Undervolter

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Overkill*
> 
> The AMD 95w 8-core is undervolted and underclocked from the factory. AMD is notorious for overvolting their chips for the given speeds they ship with just to make sure no problems. The BD/PD architecture actually does downclock and undervolt pretty well (just look at all their mobile chips). This particular chip wont overclock any better than any other on the same process node. Its nothing like how Intel bins their Xeons to better metrics.


Yes, i know this is the theory. However, being an owner of both an Athlon 5050e and an Athlon 605e, i can say that both of them undervolt more than any "normal" Athlon. I don't know how they overclock, i don't care, but historically, the "e" editions, undervolt better. ALL CPUs have an "undervolting margin" compared to stock voltage. There is no exception to that. So when a CPU comes at stock 95W, when undervolted, it will go considerably lower than a CPU that comes at stock 125W. It's not 100Mhz that makes a difference of 30W. It's better binning. Which is also why such CPUs usually cost a premium.


----------



## drmrlordx

So will the 860k have an effective 4.5 ghz limit since it's a harvested Kaveri?


----------



## NaroonGTX

Yep. Most likely it won't suffer from the weird throttling issues, which would make it a somewhat more desirable part, along with the cheaper price.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Undervolter*
> 
> Is this real????
> 
> http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=13798552179
> 
> God, i hope it won't be an OEM piece again that nobody can find!


Yeah, I saw another rumor showing we were getting 8310 and 8370.

850 yuan is about $140. It's designed to replace FX 6350.

It's a really good move on AMD's behalf. It's going to undercut 4670k by $100 and if you're looking to build a gaming rig for multiplatform games, that frees up enough money to move from 4670k + 280x to 8310 + 290. 8310 with 290 over 4670k with 280x is far more appealing than 6350 and 290 over 4670k and 280x.

4670k + 280x is going to beat 8310 + 280x nearly every time, but 4670k + 280x is not going to touch 8310 + 290 unless you're doing something like playing Skyrim or some other older game that doesn't scale well to multiple threads and can saturate a single piledriver core.


----------



## heroxoot

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *Undervolter*
> 
> Is this real????
> 
> http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=13798552179
> 
> God, i hope it won't be an OEM piece again that nobody can find!
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, I saw another rumor showing we were getting 8310 and 8370.
> 
> 850 yuan is about $140. It's designed to replace FX 6350.
> 
> It's a really good move on AMD's behalf. It's going to undercut 4670k by $100 and if you're looking to build a gaming rig for multiplatform games, that frees up enough money to move from 4670k + 280x to 8310 + 290. 8310 with 290 over 4670k with 280x is far more appealing than 6350 and 290 over 4670k and 280x.
> 
> 4670k + 280x is going to beat 8310 + 280x nearly every time, but 4670k + 280x is not going to touch 8310 + 290 unless you're doing something like playing Skyrim or some other older game that doesn't scale well to multiple threads and can saturate a single piledriver core.
Click to expand...

Playing skyrim on lowest detail @ 640x480. I really hate when they benchmark like that. It's so silly.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> Playing skyrim on lowest detail @ 640x480. I really hate when they benchmark like that. It's so silly.


Not to mention the physics freak out without VSync.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Skyrim got patched a while ago to use SSE instructions rather than x87 instructions. Even Piledriver can run it no problem now.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Yea, only issues was with the mod WarZones loading a large battle. My 960 at 3.8GHz (when I had it at that) dropped into the 30's. I'm also using a mod that adds Tyrael's armor from D3... that area stays at a constant 15FPS...


----------



## Seronx

Anyone ready for the hexa-core Steamroller with 12 threads?



Kaveri and Carrizo => 1 thread per core
Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L => 2 threads per core

Kaveri-L = Hexa-core
Carrizo-L = Octo-core


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Anyone ready for the hexa-core Steamroller with 12 threads?


on which socket


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> on which socket


2014/1H2015 = FM2+ with a 65-nm FCH aka A88X/etc. <-- DDR3
2H2015+ = FM3 with a 28-nm FCH aka A98X/etc. <-- DDR4

Kaveri-L = DDR3/DDR4
Carrizo-L = DDR4

Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L are the new parts which were thought up in 2013. While Kaveri and Carrizo are the old but renewed parts from 2011-2012.

L equals Large, Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L will have mobile platforms. Kaveri-L mobile will launch with Carrizo(DDR3) mobile and Carrizo-L mobile will launch with Carrizo2(DDR4) mobile.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> on which socket
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2014/1H2015 = FM2+ with a 65-nm FCH aka A88X/etc. <-- DDR3
> 2H2015+ = FM3 with a 28-nm FCH aka A98X/etc. <-- DDR4
> 
> Kaveri-L = DDR3/DDR4
> Carrizo-L = DDR4
> 
> Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L are the new parts which were thought up in 2013. While Kaveri and Carrizo are the old but renewed parts from 2011-2012.
> 
> L equals Large, Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L will have mobile platforms. Kaveri-L mobile will launch with Carrizo(DDR3) mobile and Carrizo-L mobile will launch with Carrizo2(DDR4) mobile.
Click to expand...

do you think the node process on these are better suited to higher clocks then the initial Kaveri/sr(b?)

i'm rather torn bout my kaveri, its a little beast.. but nothing uses it in that way yet in a manageable fashion.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> do you think the node process on these are better suited to higher clocks then the initial Kaveri/sr(b?)


It will be using the same 28-nm SHP process. The APU will probably operate with a lower clock rate maybe with even worse overclocking. The big feature with the Steamroller Revision L modules is the addition of Simultaneous Multithreading.

With Kaveri-L there is the removal of the large DDR3/GDDR5 interface for a highly dense DDR3/DDR4 interface. Lots of the redundant or overly big units have been removed or shrinked. This means Kaveri-L can be near the same size as Kaveri.

With Kaveri-L AMD has finally caught up with Intel/Samsung/Apple in designing.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> do you think the node process on these are better suited to higher clocks then the initial Kaveri/sr(b?)
> 
> 
> 
> It will be using the same 28-nm SHP process. The APU will probably operate with a lower clock rate maybe with even worse overclocking. The big feature with the Steamroller Revision L modules is the addition of Simultaneous Multithreading.
Click to expand...

apparently i need to read some more... so a bigger chip then the 8350 on a smaller process..and wait.. they can switch from CMT to SMT in middle of a uarch?

did module turn into cores and more got added? or did each core in the modules gain independent threading?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> apperantly i need to read some more... so a bigger chip then the 8350 on a smaller process..and wait.. they can switch from CMT to SMT in middle of a uarch?


It isn't the same µarch but it uses the same macros which are processor building blocks.

For example, Piledriver-L (didn't make it into a product);


There is additional logic for SMT but it only costs 5% of the die. The big deal was fixing the bottlenecks with CMT before deciding to go SMT with CMT. This added up to more die cost with SteamrollerA/B but SteamrollerL should only be around ~30.4+ mm².


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Anyone ready for the hexa-core Steamroller with 12 threads?
> 
> 
> 
> Kaveri and Carrizo => 1 thread per core
> Kaveri-L and Carrizo-L => 2 threads per core
> 
> Kaveri-L = Hexa-core
> Carrizo-L = Octo-core


A little early for an April's Fools joke, innit?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> It isn't the same µarch but it uses the same macros which are processor building blocks.
> 
> For example, Piledriver-L (didn't make it into a product);


Lol no. That image is NOT Piledriver. First you were saying it was Steamroller, when it became abundantly clear that it wasn't that either. The only thing it could've been was some form of an Excavator floorplan.


----------



## NaroonGTX

edit: Double-post.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> apperantly i need to read some more... so a bigger chip then the 8350 on a smaller process..and wait.. they can switch from CMT to SMT in middle of a uarch?
> 
> 
> 
> It isn't the same µarch but it uses the same macros which are processor building blocks.
> 
> For example, Piledriver-L (didn't make it into a product);
> 
> 
> There is additional logic for SMT but it only costs 5% of the die. The big deal was fixing the bottlenecks with CMT before deciding to go SMT with CMT.
Click to expand...

so they've been working on CMT and SMT concurrently it seems like in parallel

no wonder they were just bleeding out R&D costs taking a gambling financial hit for it

interesting...


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> A little early for an April's Fools joke, innit?


It isn't April, so why would it be April Fools?
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That image is NOT Piledriver.


It isn't Piledriver... It is Piledriver-L.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> First you were saying it was Steamroller, when it became abundantly clear that it wasn't that either.


It would make sense if it was Steamroller but nope. It has VMT in the areas where SMT is used in Steamroller. It also has SMT in areas where VMT is used in Steamroller.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The only thing it could've been was some form of an Excavator floorplan.


It is Piledriver-L floorplan it isn't Steamroller or Excavator, but Piledriver-L.

Piledriver;
L1 Instruction - 64 KB 2-way, 1 shared for between cores.
Instruction Fetch - 1 shared for two cores(2x16B Fetch Windows)
Instruction Decoder - 1 shared for two cores(4 macro-ops per core / VMT)
FPU - 4 pipes
Two cores with one thread each(Each retired up to 4 macro-ops)

Piledriver-L(image);
L1 Instruction - 64 KB 2-way, 1 per core.
Instruction Fetch - 1 per core(4x16B Fetch Windows)
Instruction Decoder - 1 shared for two cores(8 macro-ops per core / VMT)
FPU - 8 pipes
Two cores with two threads each(Each core retires up to 8 macro-ops)

Steamroller
L1 Instruction - 96 KB 3-way, 1 shared for between cores.
Instruction Fetch - 1 shared for two cores(2x32B Fetch Windows)
Instruction Decoder - 1 per core (4 macro-ops per core / SMT)
FPU - 3 pipes
Two cores with one thread each(Each core retires up to 4 macro-ops)

Steamroller-L(Not the image);
L1 Instruction - 96 KB 3-way, 1 per core.
Instruction Fetch - 1 per core(4x32B Fetch Windows)
Instruction Decoder - 1 per core (8 macro-ops per core / SMT)
FPU - 6 pipes
Two cores with one thread each(Each core retires up to 8 macro-ops)

Instruction Decode in the -L versions are competitively shared between Thread A and Thread B. The image does not have two separate decode engines but a single massive one.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> A little early for an April's Fools joke, innit?
> 
> 
> 
> It isn't April, so why would it be April Fools?
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> That image is NOT Piledriver.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It isn't Piledriver... It is Piledriver-L.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> First you were saying it was Steamroller, when it became abundantly clear that it wasn't that either.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It would make sense if it was Steamroller but nope. It has VMT in the areas where SMT is used in Steamroller. It also has SMT in areas where VMT is used in Steamroller.
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> The only thing it could've been was some form of an Excavator floorplan.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It is Piledriver-L floorplan it isn't Steamroller or Excavator, but Piledriver-L.
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!
> 
> 
> 
> Piledriver;
> L1 Instruction - 64 KB 2-way, 1 shared for between cores.
> Instruction Fetch - 1 shared for two cores(2x16B Fetch Windows)
> Instruction Decoder - 1 shared for two cores(4 macro-ops per core / VMT)
> FPU - 4 pipes
> Two cores with one thread each(Each retired up to 4 macro-ops)
> 
> Piledriver-L(image);
> L1 Instruction - 64 KB 2-way, 1 per core.
> Instruction Fetch - 1 per core(4x16B Fetch Windows)
> Instruction Decoder - 1 shared for two cores(8 macro-ops per core / VMT)
> FPU - 8 pipes
> Two cores with two threads each(Each core retires up to 8 macro-ops)
> 
> Steamroller
> L1 Instruction - 96 KB 3-way, 1 shared for between cores.
> Instruction Fetch - 1 shared for two cores(2x32B Fetch Windows)
> Instruction Decoder - 1 per core (4 macro-ops per core / SMT)
> FPU - 3 pipes
> Two cores with one thread each(Each core retires up to 4 macro-ops)
> 
> Steamroller-L(Not the image);
> L1 Instruction - 96 KB 3-way, 1 per core.
> Instruction Fetch - 1 per core(4x32B Fetch Windows)
> Instruction Decoder - 1 per core (8 macro-ops per core / SMT)
> FPU - 6 pipes
> Two cores with one thread each(Each core retires up to 8 macro-ops)
> 
> 
> 
> Instruction Decode in the -L versions are competitively shared between Thread A and Thread B. The image does not have two separate decode engines but a single massive one.
Click to expand...

something just occurred to me... putting this on the A88x chipset might be a rough idea..

how many amd cpu users use Nvidia graphics cards and more than one of them, unless they are planning a stop gap chipset to allow SLI as last i check you can't on A88x even tho there is no reason not to.. i don't understand why they would risk a cpu sale because they want to force people to use their graphics. (not siding, i own and use both) I'm sure there is a market segment that is using AMD cpus and Nvidia graphics cards. with AMD's cpu market share i would assume they would want every little 1% they can get


----------



## sdlvx

seronx, this is quite the claim. I can't seem to find anything regarding Piledriver L on google. I don't doubt AMD cancels a lot of projects, but something like this probably would have gotten out a bit sooner.

I will give you this, though. That die shot that was leaked is clearly not Steamroller, Piledriver, or Excavator. It's way too soon for it to be K12 x86 sister core. If I remember correctly, that die shot has been picked apart by a lot of people and no one could prove it was fake. That doesn't rule it out, but at least you have some sort of explanation for what that die shot is of.

EDIT: @ FlailScHLAMP, AMD is going to have to start getting aggressive with pushing their platform. AMD needs HSA capable machines as an install base before it can get developers to write HSA software. AMD + Nvidia does not help them at all. Neither does Intel + Nvidia or even Intel + AMD.


----------



## Themisseble

What AMD needs is iGPU as FPU.... and new soc and better P/W


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> seronx, this is quite the claim. I can't seem to find anything regarding Piledriver L on google. I don't doubt AMD cancels a lot of projects, but something like this probably would have gotten out a bit sooner.
> 
> I will give you this, though. That die shot that was leaked is clearly not Steamroller, Piledriver, or Excavator. It's way too soon for it to be K12 x86 sister core. If I remember correctly, that die shot has been picked apart by a lot of people and no one could prove it was fake. That doesn't rule it out, but at least you have some sort of explanation for what that die shot is of.
> 
> EDIT: @ FlailScHLAMP, AMD is going to have to start getting aggressive with pushing their platform. AMD needs HSA capable machines as an install base before it can get developers to write HSA software. AMD + Nvidia does not help them at all. Neither does Intel + Nvidia or even Intel + AMD.


I agree they need to start pushing their platform, I however think, eliminating a sales market.

I'm not saying amd/ati cards shouldn't be the focus. i'm just thinking that AMD/ati are usually innovators, and they could come up with a better way.

limit it a little but don't full out stop it from happening. limits like you can only SLI over 2 pci slots allowing quadsli and 2 way sli. no where near ideal but its an idea.. (terrible one i might say)

or take a deeper look at MS's generic drivers.. maybe work something in like that to allow limited acceleration is stuff.. who knows.

a teaser is always better sales tool, then an turned off switch.. that is all i'm saying.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> I can't seem to find anything regarding Piledriver L on google.


It probably has a different name.







The platforms that this version of 15h goes into are -L models.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> That die shot that was leaked is clearly not Steamroller, Piledriver, or Excavator.


The leaked design is close to Piledriver. Same parts but appears to be visually compact.

Timeline;
September 2010 - Bulldozer
January 2012 - Piledriver
August 2012 - High Density Libraries
May 2013 - Piledriver-L
January 2014 - Steamroller

Assuming from HDL to Piledriver-L...

October 2014 - Steamroller-L.

From Trinity to Piledriver-L....

December 2014 - Steamroller-L


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> seronx, this is quite the claim. I can't seem to find anything regarding Piledriver L on google. I don't doubt AMD cancels a lot of projects, but something like this probably would have gotten out a bit sooner.
> 
> I will give you this, though. That die shot that was leaked is clearly not Steamroller, Piledriver, or Excavator. It's way too soon for it to be K12 x86 sister core. If I remember correctly, that die shot has been picked apart by a lot of people and no one could prove it was fake. That doesn't rule it out, but at least you have some sort of explanation for what that die shot is of.
> 
> EDIT: @ FlailScHLAMP, AMD is going to have to start getting aggressive with pushing their platform. AMD needs HSA capable machines as an install base before it can get developers to write HSA software. AMD + Nvidia does not help them at all. Neither does Intel + Nvidia or even Intel + AMD.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree they need to start pushing their platform, I however think, eliminating a sales market.
> 
> I'm not saying amd/ati cards shouldn't be the focus. i'm just thinking that AMD/ati are usually innovators, and they could come up with a better way.
> 
> limit it a little but don't full out stop it from happening. limits like you can only SLI over 2 pci slots allowing quadsli and 2 way sli. no where near ideal but its an idea.. (terrible one i might say)
> 
> or take a deeper look at MS's generic drivers.. maybe work something in like that to allow limited acceleration is stuff.. who knows.
> 
> a teaser is always better sales tool, then an turned off switch.. that is all i'm saying.
Click to expand...

I don't think AMD would do something like artificially limit it. I would assume it'd be more along the lines of cutting back on PCIe lanes and instead using HTX to connect dGPUs instead. I am not the only one who has heard and read things that AMD has something cooking that will make PCIe 4.0 look awful.

If AMD wants to get HSA working across dGPUs and APUs, PCIe isn't going to cut it. Nvidia will never play well with AMD either, so AMD would probably be forced to just give enough PCIe to make Nvidia products semi-viable while letting their GPUs soak up the sweet, sweet HTX/inifinband over HT/etc.

Not to mention the way that AMD has gotten Mantle to work with multiple dGPUs, I don't think you'd want to even bother with SLI. Mantle doesn't use AFR at all, which means absolutely no micro stuttering or other problems that usually plague SLI and Crossfire. Mantle can divide the work up properly between GPUs. Hawaii no longer needing a crossfire bridge is just the first step with AMD preparing for getting their dGPUs to be able to share workloads far better than they can now, since Crossfire bridge doesn't have enough bandwidth anyways.

When thinking 2 years or so into the future, you have to remember that AMD is doing everything they can do turn GPUs into big GPGPU monsters and Nvidia is doing everything they can to turn their chips into efficient gaming devices that scale to mobile devices. Nvidia and AMD are going in very different directions. I do think Nvidia will always make gigantic dies, but they won't be GPGPU type chips as Nvidia is focusing on efficiency. But Nvidia is looking for new markets in mobile and embedded devices and AMD is looking for new markets for people who need GPGPU and solutions to the problems HSA solves.

Nvidia has already made a lot of concessions for Maxwell GPGPU performance for the sake of improving efficiency. By the time we see K12 x86 sister core, we're going to end up seeing Nvidia with gaming devices and AMD with GPGPU beasts that can also game. If AMD can use console wins to push GPGPU in gaming, Nvidia is going to miss out on a lot of features. Think along the lines of how AMD users have missed out on PhysX, but imagine how much PhysX would be used if the two big consoles that have PC ports had Nvidia hardware inside with GPU cores reserved for GPGPU.

I do think AMD graphics cards are going to be far more appealing in the future once Mantle and other HSA technologies mature. Nvidia has definitely changed course. I am a pretty devout Blender user and it can render in CUDA, but OpenCL is sort of broken at the moment. The new Nvidia cards are awful at GPGPU, to the point where GTX 780 Ti is barely faster than GTX 580. It is difficult to fathom but Nvidia is moving away from GPGPU and they have left a lot of CUDA supporters abandoned.

These things are going to start to play a huge role in the future when HSA comes to fruition.


----------



## FlailScHLAMP

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> seronx, this is quite the claim. I can't seem to find anything regarding Piledriver L on google. I don't doubt AMD cancels a lot of projects, but something like this probably would have gotten out a bit sooner.
> 
> I will give you this, though. That die shot that was leaked is clearly not Steamroller, Piledriver, or Excavator. It's way too soon for it to be K12 x86 sister core. If I remember correctly, that die shot has been picked apart by a lot of people and no one could prove it was fake. That doesn't rule it out, but at least you have some sort of explanation for what that die shot is of.
> 
> EDIT: @ FlailScHLAMP, AMD is going to have to start getting aggressive with pushing their platform. AMD needs HSA capable machines as an install base before it can get developers to write HSA software. AMD + Nvidia does not help them at all. Neither does Intel + Nvidia or even Intel + AMD.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree they need to start pushing their platform, I however think, eliminating a sales market.
> 
> I'm not saying amd/ati cards shouldn't be the focus. i'm just thinking that AMD/ati are usually innovators, and they could come up with a better way.
> 
> limit it a little but don't full out stop it from happening. limits like you can only SLI over 2 pci slots allowing quadsli and 2 way sli. no where near ideal but its an idea.. (terrible one i might say)
> 
> or take a deeper look at MS's generic drivers.. maybe work something in like that to allow limited acceleration is stuff.. who knows.
> 
> a teaser is always better sales tool, then an turned off switch.. that is all i'm saying.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I don't think AMD would do something like artificially limit it. I would assume it'd be more along the lines of cutting back on PCIe lanes and instead using HTX to connect dGPUs instead. I am not the only one who has heard and read things that AMD has something cooking that will make PCIe 4.0 look awful.
> 
> If AMD wants to get HSA working across dGPUs and APUs, PCIe isn't going to cut it. Nvidia will never play well with AMD either, so AMD would probably be forced to just give enough PCIe to make Nvidia products semi-viable while letting their GPUs soak up the sweet, sweet HTX/inifinband over HT/etc.
> 
> Not to mention the way that AMD has gotten Mantle to work with multiple dGPUs, I don't think you'd want to even bother with SLI. Mantle doesn't use AFR at all, which means absolutely no micro stuttering or other problems that usually plague SLI and Crossfire. Mantle can divide the work up properly between GPUs. Hawaii no longer needing a crossfire bridge is just the first step with AMD preparing for getting their dGPUs to be able to share workloads far better than they can now, since Crossfire bridge doesn't have enough bandwidth anyways.
> 
> When thinking 2 years or so into the future, you have to remember that AMD is doing everything they can do turn GPUs into big GPGPU monsters and Nvidia is doing everything they can to turn their chips into efficient gaming devices that scale to mobile devices. Nvidia and AMD are going in very different directions. I do think Nvidia will always make gigantic dies, but they won't be GPGPU type chips as Nvidia is focusing on efficiency. But Nvidia is looking for new markets in mobile and embedded devices and AMD is looking for new markets for people who need GPGPU and solutions to the problems HSA solves.
> 
> Nvidia has already made a lot of concessions for Maxwell GPGPU performance for the sake of improving efficiency. By the time we see K12 x86 sister core, we're going to end up seeing Nvidia with gaming devices and AMD with GPGPU beasts that can also game. If AMD can use console wins to push GPGPU in gaming, Nvidia is going to miss out on a lot of features. Think along the lines of how AMD users have missed out on PhysX, but imagine how much PhysX would be used if the two big consoles that have PC ports had Nvidia hardware inside with GPU cores reserved for GPGPU.
> 
> I do think AMD graphics cards are going to be far more appealing in the future once Mantle and other HSA technologies mature. Nvidia has definitely changed course. I am a pretty devout Blender user and it can render in CUDA, but OpenCL is sort of broken at the moment. The new Nvidia cards are awful at GPGPU, to the point where GTX 780 Ti is barely faster than GTX 580. It is difficult to fathom but Nvidia is moving away from GPGPU and they have left a lot of CUDA supporters abandoned.
> 
> These things are going to start to play a huge role in the future when HSA comes to fruition.
Click to expand...

I'm not disagreeing with you.. i'm just a dirty PhysX fan boi that loves AMD gear..

@serox has there been speculated weather FM2+ chip will be able to drop into FM3?


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> @seronx has there been speculated weather FM2+ chip will be able to drop into FM3?


Only Kaveri-L and potentially Carrizo.

Kaveri-L will exist like Broadwell when there is Carrizo and Skylake filling up the bottom.

http://img1.mydrivers.com/img/20140630/86e1800dd8e2496b96162e3584c2c76a.png

Unlike, Intel. AMD has the big part on top while the little part on bottom.

Broadwell vs Large Kaveri
Skylake vs Small Carrizo

Skylake Refresh vs Large Carrizo
Skylake Refresh vs Small Carrzio2.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *FlailScHLAMP*
> 
> I'm not disagreeing with you.. i'm just a dirty PhysX fan boi that loves AMD gear..
> 
> @serox has there been speculated weather FM2+ chip will be able to drop into FM3?


Ah yeah, I know how you feel. I ran an 8800GTS with my 7970 for a bit for PhysX but it was a pain and 8800 GTS didn't really have enough umph. Hopefully we see openCL and DirectCompute physics take over where PhysX left off. A fat CPU with a bit if iGPU thrown in to do physics while the main GPU(s) do the heavy lifting for rendering would be pretty awesome. I'm interested to see how HSA would work with physics engines since CPU and GPU can share data.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *sdlvx*
> 
> Ah yeah, I know how you feel. I ran an 8800GTS with my 7970 for a bit for PhysX but it was a pain and 8800 GTS didn't really have enough umph. Hopefully we see openCL and DirectCompute physics take over where PhysX left off. A fat CPU with a bit if iGPU thrown in to do physics while the main GPU(s) do the heavy lifting for rendering would be pretty awesome. I'm interested to see how HSA would work with physics engines since CPU and GPU can share data.


If HSA/mantle can offload Havok physics onto a GPU we will see massive gains. Forget nVidia, they are determined to ensure that CPU's only run Physx in x87.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> If HSA/mantle can offload Havok physics onto a GPU we will see massive gains. Forget nVidia, they are determined to ensure that CPU's only run Physx in x87.


Actually we already see that. Havok ... when APU will use iGPu as FPU then we will see huge difference


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Liranan*
> 
> If HSA/mantle can offload Havok physics onto a GPU we will see massive gains. Forget nVidia, they are determined to ensure that CPU's only run Physx in x87.


Physx uses SSE2 ever since the "3.0" version, along with multi-threading... Though it's still garbage, and Havok is still superior to it.


----------



## Liranan

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Physx uses SSE2 ever since the "3.0" version, along with multi-threading... Though it's still garbage, and Havok is still superior to it.


Thanks for the correction but I assume this 'update' is nominal only, as it's still absolutely terrible.


----------



## Themisseble

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Physx uses SSE2 ever since the "3.0" version, along with multi-threading... Though it's still garbage, and Havok is still superior to it.


This is what nvidia says but it never use MT... i mean when i play game with physx (CPU) and i get in very intensive situation my CPU use only 1 core (18-22% usage = borderlands 2). But when i turn physx game start to use more CPU 50-60%.


----------



## Seronx

Majority of game engines use PhysX 2.8...

Game Engines that will use Physx 3 by default;
Unreal Engine 4
Unity 5

There is also an overhaul in most games from CUDA to DirectCompute. This way Nvidia can avoid the hassle of being Nvidia specific only. While also bottlenecking AMD GPUs by optimizing mostly for Nvidia.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Themisseble*
> 
> This is what nvidia says but it never use MT... i mean when i play game with physx (CPU) and i get in very intensive situation my CPU use only 1 core (18-22% usage = borderlands 2). But when i turn physx game start to use more CPU 50-60%.


Yeah, CPU Physx in BL2 is terrible. The game is relatively playable with it set to Medium, but it doesn't use more than one thread at all.


----------



## heroxoot

I honestly wouldnt play it at all with physx. In general it ruins the game. It makes objects unable to be walked on and sometimes it's the only way to get a hidden chest. Or so it feels. It's just a bunch of nVidia flags all over the place anyway. The effects are not that great on guns either in my opinion. But hey, just my opinion.


----------



## sdlvx

Bullet Physics is much better than both PhysX and Havok. Epic and Unreal have always been Nvidia lapdogs but I believe that another game engine will show up with OpenCL Bullet and go "here, this works in Linux, Windows, Xbone, and PS4" and Nvidia will be stuck looking like idiots being tied down to Microsoft.

But given how Nvidia is going to depend on DX12 to compete with Mantle, and DX12 is more than likely only going to be a W9 thing, it is no surprise that Nvidia is going to go from being an enemy of freedom by pushing their own proprietary solutions to being an enemy of freedom doing everything they can to ensure Windows ecosystem remains on top and that whatever awful things Microsoft wants to ram down our throats will be backed up with Nvidia going "but you want the latest and greatest gaming features right?"

I would think that people would be a bit more apprehensive about Nvidia proprietary solutions since Nvidia basically abandoned CUDA to the point where they are removing features from their architectures that CUDA needs to perform well. This has left a lot of CUDA projects stuck being programmed for CUDA and CUDA's limitations while not having hardware to run CUDA on that is much faster than a GTX 580. Blender Project built Cycles renderer around CUDA and then Nvidia turned around and went "well you like your GPGPU? Too bad! We removed a lot of GPGPU stuff from our GPUs to make them more efficient! Remember how you abandoned OpenCL because our OpenCL drivers are intentionally trash? Thank us later!"

But deep down inside I really hate GPGPU PhysX. Nvidia buys out Aegia which has their own custom PPU add in card. Nvidia then removes the PPU card and puts those calculations on the most bottlenecked part of a gaming rig just so they can ensure that Nvidia not only gets an extra sale from an add in card, but to ensure that PhysX only works when all your graphics cards are Nvidia so they can actively deny AMD GPU market share.

PhysX is a situation where decisions were made that hurt the consumer while only offering the benefit of giving Nvidia another marketing point to sell their cards.


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *heroxoot*
> 
> I honestly wouldnt play it at all with physx. In general it ruins the game. It makes objects unable to be walked on and sometimes it's the only way to get a hidden chest. Or so it feels. It's just a bunch of nVidia flags all over the place anyway. The effects are not that great on guns either in my opinion. But hey, just my opinion.


Not to mention how glitchy it is. The ragdoll physics become hilariously exaggerated. Almost every time I'd kill someone, their bodies would start spazzing out and their limbs would start breakdancing violently, more often than not catapulting their corpses out of the map (not kidding, this happened like to 60% of the people I killed with it on, lol!) The "fluid simulations" they bragged about were silly as well. All of the fluids looked like jello.


----------



## yrettete

Is steamroller over now that they released am1 ?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *yrettete*
> 
> Is steamroller over now that they released am1 ?


Not if AMD drops the cheaper A8 7600 and A10 7800. Also you can't really OC the jaguar procs since all you can up is the bus not the actaul multiplier. Also in laptops Kaveri is promising but board layout and other parts used will determine whether they are feasible or not.


----------



## Seronx

Bulldozer's Switch Interconnect (Simple)


Excavator's Ring-based Interconnect (Patent Simple)


This ring-based interconnect wasn't originally planned for insertion with Excavator but with Piledriver-L.


Each PDL core has its own L1i/Fetch.

Also, for comparison between Piledriver and Piledriver-L;


----------



## deepor

What do you want to say, Seronx? Is there something I should see in the pictures? Can't you please just type what I should see there?


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> This ring-based interconnect wasn't originally planned for insertion with Excavator but with Piledriver-L.


Every time I read posts like this, I can't help but think that what Excavator really will be is the Bulldozer microarchitecture finally done correctly for the first and last time.


----------



## delboy67

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Everyone is well aware how far behind AMD is in the CPU department. No amount of wishes and magic will change that, however.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Every time I read posts like this, I can't help but think that what Excavator really will be is the Bulldozer microarchitecture finally done correctly for the first and last time.


Current rumor is excavator/carizzo will be mobile only and the next gen hedt chip will be lots of 'jaguar on steroids' cores and gpu cores with smt and be called 'Zen' (not my info/prediction btw)


----------



## NaroonGTX

Lol those rumors about K12 are absolute nonsense. No one outside of AMD knows anything about K12 or the sister x86 core.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> What do you want to say, Seronx?


I'm addicted to forums and patents and I have a problem.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> Is there something I should see in the pictures? Can't you please just type what I should see there?


- New Northbridge/Uncore Interconnect (Crossbar Switch to Ring-based)
- New micro-architecture but still based on 15h micro-architecture (2x IPC and SMT2 from original 15h)

Even though the new 15h design is based on Piledriver and 32-nm SHP. It should be considered a post-steamroller design with a 18 month wait till actual product.

May 2013 (Piledriver-L) -> November 2014(Orochi-L)


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> Current rumor is excavator/carizzo will be mobile only and the next gen hedt chip will be lots of 'jaguar on steroids' cores and gpu cores with smt and be called 'Zen' (not my info/prediction btw)


Can't be. They've already said Carrizo is coming out on FM2+, and that's a desktop socket. I'm sure there will be a mobile version, but it actually looks like they're pushing the desktop product as a priority. On top of that, they almost have to release Excavator for the desktop, or withdraw from the market space entirely. They're about to move the Piledriver FX chips downmarket with a price cut as it is.


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Seronx*
> 
> May 2013 (Piledriver-L) -> November 2014(Orochi-L)


.... Orochi is the family design for Bulldozer/Piledriver/etc. You are mixing two different terminologies saying Piledriver-L -> orochi-L. It doesn't make sense.

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> On top of that, they almost have to release Excavator for the desktop, or withdraw from the market space entirely. They're about to move the Piledriver FX chips downmarket with a price cut as it is.


Wouldnt it be crazy if AMD surprised everyone will a sudden release of Steamroller or die shrink based FX's at the time of those old CPU price cuts? lol. Seriously doubt it will happen, but it would be funny.


----------



## jsc1973

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Wouldnt it be crazy if AMD surprised everyone will a sudden release of Steamroller or die shrink based FX's at the time of those old CPU price cuts? lol. Seriously doubt it will happen, but it would be funny.


It would be, but I don't think AMD has access to a smaller node that they can use for the FX. The 28nm process they're using for Kaveri is bulk, and isn't an improvement over 32nm SOI. They could probably put Steamroller on AM3+ if they wanted to, but they'd have to tape out a 32nm die, and they probably figure it's not worth the expense to do so. A 28nm bulk Steamroller FX would be pointless, because its clockspeed limitations would offset the higher IPC of the new core. Same problem that Kaveri has.

As far as FX is concerned, I am hoping that there's a six-core Carrizo coming on FM2+ next year. One of the reasons I immediately smelled a rat on that fake CPU-Z screenshot is that it had been assigned an A10 branding. If AMD makes a hexacore Carrizo, it's going to be branded as an FX, not A-series. They're already branding the best mobile Kaveri chips as FX, so I'm sure any high-end APU's they might choose to make will be, too. I just hope they choose to make it.


----------



## AcEsSalvation

Thought Zambezi was the name of the cores in BD...


----------



## EniGma1987

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Thought Zambezi was the name of the cores in BD...


Your right it is, my bad. Orochi is the family name for the design as a whole.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> It would be, but I don't think AMD has access to a smaller node that they can use for the FX. The 28nm process they're using for Kaveri is bulk, and isn't an improvement over 32nm SOI.


True for now, but Global Foundries has a 28nm SOI process that is about to be ready for production in another couple months. Still too late for anything to be used on a CPU design and definitely too late to launch something secret with these price cuts timeline.


----------



## sdlvx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *deepor*
> 
> What do you want to say, Seronx? Is there something I should see in the pictures? Can't you please just type what I should see there?


I will explain for you.

Traditional buses work like roads. Say you have two towns, CPU-town and GPU-town. GPU-town wants a shipment of data, so it sends a request to CPU-town for what it needs. Then, CPU-town ships it directly to GPU-town. This sounds all great, but imagine you have many towns. You have HDD-Town, memory town, Memory-town, APIC-town, CPU-town, L3-town. Not all of these towns directly connect to each other. It would be too expensive to connect every single town. So you make roads between the most common ones and hope for the best.

Now the situation is more complex. Instead of a straight line, you now have lots of lines interconnecting things. But you have to pick and choose, you can not just connect everything. So you end up in situations where GPU-town wants something and it requests it from CPU-town. But CPU-town does not have a direct connection to GPU-town, so it must go through SRQ-town, Crossbar-town, PCIe-town, then to GPU-town. Sometimes it may want things from RAM-Town, so it must go through that as well. Perhaps it is not in RAM-town and must go to HDD-town? Now you have a giant mess of things going in all directions going through all sorts of other towns.

Ring bus is more like having a giant rail system that has stops at each point. Data gets on ring bus/train and gets off where it needs to. No need to pass through several other things. You still have to go through a loop and pass over other things, but the bus can usually handle getting the right things to the right places. No need to go through each individual town in most cases.

Ring buses are fantastic. They are much faster than traditional buses. They also mean you don't have to keep making "roads" to connect things and spending a ton of resources on making roads.

If you don't want stupid town and shipping analogies, anandtech has a decent write up of a ring bus in Sandy Bridge: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3922/intels-sandy-bridge-architecture-exposed/4

A ring bus is a ring bus. But the core concept is faster performance with less complexity. You can basically just keep adding "stops" to a ring bus and it doesn't get too out of hand. Meanwhile, with traditional buses, you end up drawing lines (building roads in my example) from every point you can to increase performance.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> Orochi is the family design for Bulldozer/Piledriver/etc. You are mixing two different terminologies saying Piledriver-L -> orochi-L. It doesn't make sense.


Orochi is a die designed from 4 modules. This is commonly referred to as 00h-0Fh models of 15h family.

Orochi Revision B2 => 00h
Orochi Revision C0 => 02h
Orochi Revision L0 => 0Ch
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *AcEsSalvation*
> 
> Thought Zambezi was the name of the cores in BD...


Zambezi = 00h
Vishera/Centurion = 02h
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *EniGma1987*
> 
> True for now, but Global Foundries has a 28nm SOI process that is about to be ready for production in another couple months. Still too late for anything to be used on a CPU design and definitely too late to launch something secret with these price cuts timeline.


The 28-nm SHP node is IBM's 22-nm bulk node or IBM's 22-nm SOI node. It is custom to which one the customer, AMD wants.

GlobalFoundries Spin-off;


Technology Alliance;


----------



## delboy67

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *jsc1973*
> 
> Can't be. They've already said Carrizo is coming out on FM2+, and that's a desktop socket. I'm sure there will be a mobile version, but it actually looks like they're pushing the desktop product as a priority. On top of that, they almost have to release Excavator for the desktop, or withdraw from the market space entirely. They're about to move the Piledriver FX chips downmarket with a price cut as it is.


I'm just getting this from other forums and people who read linkedin/claim to have contacts but carizzo on fm2+ is cancelled, its not on 'new' roadmaps and kaveri will continue until 2016 when k12 (arm) and 'Zen' (x86) cores are released. 2 rumored reasons are no hbm available and lack of performance increase at dt tdps over steamroller







I really hope rumor is wrong like any amd fan would.


----------



## drmrlordx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *delboy67*
> 
> I'm just getting this from other forums and people who read linkedin/claim to have contacts but carizzo on fm2+ is cancelled, its not on 'new' roadmaps and kaveri will continue until 2016 when k12 (arm) and 'Zen' (x86) cores are released. 2 rumored reasons are no hbm available and lack of performance increase at dt tdps over steamroller
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I really hope rumor is wrong like any amd fan would.


Ouch. What is there left for AMD on the desktop until 2016 if that is true? AM3+ is EoL with no new products forthcoming. Does that mean we get . . . 2 years of the 7850? The 28nm bulk process being used for Kaveri right now doesn't seem to have much more headroom for clockspeed, certainly not within the TDP envelope that AMD wants/needs for FM2+. Are we going to see a "fully enabled" Kaveri/Steamroller ported to a 22nm SOI node coming out instead of Carrizo?


----------



## Seronx

AMD's contract for VLSI design, SoCTronics revealed this;



First three are AMD, while the rest are not AMD.

2 ports of Playstation 4
1 port of Carrizo

It should be noted;
GF28 = 28-nm HPP/SLP
GF28SHP = 22-nm SHP
GF28A = ??? (Actual: 28-nm GF20A)

It is not an actual code name for a roadmap node.

It isn't
28-nm SHP
28-nm HPP
28-nm HP
28-nm SLP
28-nm LPS

What would "A" stand for... the only thing that would make sense if it was 20-nm ETSOI.

ETSOI doesn't make sense, though;


20-nm ETSOI vs 32-nm Bulk from Intel vs 32-nm PDSOI from IBM


----------



## NaroonGTX

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *drmrlordx*
> 
> Ouch. What is there left for AMD on the desktop until 2016 if that is true? AM3+ is EoL with no new products forthcoming. Does that mean we get . . . 2 years of the 7850? The 28nm bulk process being used for Kaveri right now doesn't seem to have much more headroom for clockspeed, certainly not within the TDP envelope that AMD wants/needs for FM2+. Are we going to see a "fully enabled" Kaveri/Steamroller ported to a 22nm SOI node coming out instead of Carrizo?


"Fully-enabled" Kaveri is a myth. Not sure why Seronx keeps perpetuating it. What you see with current Kaveri is all you'll get. No "hidden" CU's anywhere on that silicon.

As for node jumps, Kaveri will remain on 28nm BULK. The first APU's that will go to 20nm will be Nolan/Amur in 2015. Carrizo will still be 28nm, probably on GF28A.


----------



## Seronx

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> No "hidden" CU's anywhere on that silicon.


UMI/GPP => PCIe 2.0, when the I/O and circuitry is the same as GFX which is PCIe 3.0.
DDR3/GDDR5 => 2x128-bit Interfaces, no GDDR5 platforms or quad-channel platforms.
GPU => 8 CUs disabled, in total there is 16 CUs each consuming ~3.5 mm². There is also a total of 4 RBEs which outputs 16 ROPs.
Quote:


> Originally Posted by *NaroonGTX*
> 
> Carrizo will still be 28nm, probably on GF28A.


GF28A is not a 28-nm node, it is a 20-nm node with relaxed density.

GF28 => HPP/HP/SLP/LPS
CPP = 114-nm to 120-nm
Lgate = 28-30-nm
M01 = 90-nm
^-- 30-nm Density

GF28SHP => SHP
CPP = 113-nm
Lgate = ~25-nm
M01 = 80-nm
^-- 28-nm Density

GF28A => ???
CPP = 100-nm
Lgate (nominal) = ~22-nm and Lgate (relaxed) = ~28-nm
M01 = 64-nm
^-- 28-nm Density

GF28A(or 28-nm GF20A) and 20-nm GF20AN are not Common Platform/Roadmap nodes.

It would make sense if it was FDSOI modded by GlobalFoundries for AMD;



http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-and-GlobalFoundries-Interested-in-FD-SOI-for-the-20-nm-Process-267519.shtml
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20120428083057_AMD_Globalfoundries_Others_Set_to_Use_Fully_Depleted_SOI_with_14nm_20nm_Chips.html

It is most likely IBM's 22nm/20-nm BG-ETSOI rather than CEA-Leti's UTBB FDSOI.

Probably one of the reasons why 28-nm SHP for AMD wasn't PDSOI but Bulk;


^-- This is for 28-nm FDSOI. The bulk design flow part works on all versions of FDSOI.


----------



## Themisseble

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-a10-7800-kaveri-apu-efficiency,3899-10.html

Excavator with DDR4 can be real deal!
New better memory controller? Better FPU? Better iGPU? FULL HSA?


----------



## Ultracarpet

Mannnn, when is an FX-7600p laptop going to be released... I feel like by the time one does, Carrizo will be close to release... buzzkill


----------



## Paul17041993

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> Mannnn, when is an FX-7600p laptop going to be released... I feel like by the time one does, Carrizo will be close to release... buzzkill


an update to the MSI GX60 is exactly what I'm waiting for to give my little bro a new laptop, hes still stuck with my old sandy+GT540M laptop and it's random when-it-feels-like graphic hangs, because nvidia drivers/architecture...

edit; though actually that being said, a mobile APU of ~45W with at least 16CUs and DDR4 (quad-channel maby?) would be absolutely legendary for a laptop...


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> Mannnn, when is an FX-7600p laptop going to be released... I feel like by the time one does, Carrizo will be close to release... buzzkill


There is a fx 7500 one which also has dual graphics with a R7 M255 a worthy combo for gaming I suppose. Oh and it has a 1080P screen.


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> There is a fx 7500 one which also has dual graphics with a R7 M255 a worthy combo for gaming I suppose. Oh and it has a 1080P screen.


Hmm yea that's not bad.

Kaveri doesn't have ddr4 support does it? Would be sweet if when it does drop there is some ddr4 in the lappy... But now that I think about it, it was only gddr5 and ddr3..


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> Hmm yea that's not bad.
> 
> Kaveri doesn't have ddr4 support does it? Would be sweet if when it does drop there is some ddr4 in the lappy... But now that I think about it, it was only gddr5 and ddr3..


Yeah it really is a shame that there is no DDR4 support and it is also a shame that there are no models with GDDR5l attached to the APU graphics.
http://geizhals.de/lenovo-z50-75-80ec001lge-a1155289.html
It seems like a really good deal but the battery and HDD need some work.


----------



## Ultracarpet

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *maarten12100*
> 
> Yeah it really is a shame that there is no DDR4 support and it is also a shame that there are no models with GDDR5l attached to the APU graphics.
> http://geizhals.de/lenovo-z50-75-80ec001lge-a1155289.html
> It seems like a really good deal but the battery and HDD need some work.


could you imagine how good these apu's would be if those 512 sp could stretch their legs with like quad channel ddr4?


----------



## maarten12100

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Ultracarpet*
> 
> could you imagine how good these apu's would be if those 512 sp could stretch their legs with like quad channel ddr4?


Well I imagine them being as fast as a desktop 7750 with GDDR5


----------

