AMD CEO Teases Zen Processor Family, Summit Ridge Makes An Appearance

[Guest]

AMD CEO Lisa Su displayed the new Zen Summit Ridge desktop processor during a press briefing event at Computex 2016.

AMD CEO Teases Zen Processor Family, Summit Ridge Makes An Appearance : Read more

 

[Robert Cook]

Well they said what was needed, now lets hope they deliver.

 

[ravewulf]

"new AF4 desktop platform"

AF4 or AM4?

 

[SpAwNtoHell]

To be or not to be, this is the question.... We really need something to push the level for cpu... Only let's hope it delivers as ceo maths and statements are barely holding when the actual thing comes out.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

"new AF4 desktop platform"

AF4 or AM4?

Thank you for catching the typo, the article is corrected to "AM4".

 

[memadmax]

uggg.
Intel been using FinFET like tech for four years now!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete? Is that integer performance or FP? Is it the fact that they have increased to 8c/16 threads? Most mainstream apps have no hope of using these 16 threads as we know. Can't wait for some real world benchmarks. I will pray that this works out, we need some competition.

 

[Achaios]

We have been hearing about ZEN for the past 4 years or so, and still there is no ZEN in the market.

After all these years, ZEN is still a concept. I wonder how many more years it's going to take before we see ZEN in the market, IF we EVER see it in the market.

 

[InvalidError]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete?

Zen does not use 'modules', it uses simultaneous multi-threading like Intel does with HT. IPC is "instructions per clock" which can only be increased by architectural changes - if you increase throughput by 20% by increasing clocks by 20%, the IPC improvement will be 0% or worse: if you increase clocks, there will usually be more pipeline stalls and the IPC will get somewhat worse.

 

[silverblue]

IPC can also mean "instructions per core", at which point clock speeds do make a difference. For example, the refreshed Excavator present in Bristol Ridge is about 10% faster than that within Carrizo, but it is also clocked about 10% faster, meaning instructions per core has gone up whereas instructions per clock likely remains about the same.

I love how people complain about Zen being years late when we first heard about Zen just over a year back.

 

[JeanLuc]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete? Is that integer performance or FP? Is it the fact that they have increased to 8c/16 threads? Most mainstream apps have no hope of using these 16 threads as we know. Can't wait for some real world benchmarks. I will pray that this works out, we need some competition.

It's 40% clock for clock and that's 40% over AMD's new Excavator microarchitecture. If you compare it against something like Bulldozer or Piledriver CPU's (such as the FX 8350) Zen will be about 55 to 60% faster. If you look at some CPU graphs clock for clock Zen in theory will be on parity with Intel's Skylake and hopefully at a cheaper price.

 

[Beholder88]

Wondering if they are being a little conservative in what they are telling us. I still have an FX 8350 in my rig and it performs rather well for what I do with it. I would be pleasantly surprised (and am hopeful) if Zen gives Intel a run for their money. Maybe not in their 10-core space, but in the 4 - 8 core space.

 

[firefoxx04]

I just want something that will give me i5 performance at a lower cost.

 

[joex444]

IPC is per clock. The statement X has a 40% IPC increase over Y means X at 3.0GHz is similar to Y at 4.2GHz. Matching clock for clock performance is great and all, but Intel is running in the 3-4GHz range so if Zen can't run that fast then the whole thing doesn't matter - they'd still be second fiddle to Intel's architecture.

 

[Memhorder]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete? Is that integer performance or FP? Is it the fact that they have increased to 8c/16 threads? Most mainstream apps have no hope of using these 16 threads as we know. Can't wait for some real world benchmarks. I will pray that this works out, we need some competition.

Open yer Task Manager buddie under CPU. I've currently got 1187 Threads running just looking at this page. 61 Processes

 

[Murissokah]

We are in desperate need of competition and innovation in the Desktop CPU front. Getting tired of mobile focused refreshes from Intel that give us little reason to upgrade.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete? Is that integer performance or FP? Is it the fact that they have increased to 8c/16 threads? Most mainstream apps have no hope of using these 16 threads as we know. Can't wait for some real world benchmarks. I will pray that this works out, we need some competition.

That's the problem with the numbers. We have known about the 40% IPC increase for a while so that is no news. We still, to this day, do not know how that number is gained.

Is it a per clock vs Piledriver? Per core? Per Clock/watt/core? Is it vs Piledriver? Steamroller? Haswell or Skylake maybe (I doubt it)?

Right now all this is is hype. They are building more hype and to me that is a bad thing. Hype only leads to disappointment. Very few products have ever lived up to the hype that gets built.

 

[ravewulf]

Hmm, 40% improvement in ICP..... that could mean a lot, is that per "module"? Have they ramped up clock-speed to ridiculous levels again to compete? Is that integer performance or FP? Is it the fact that they have increased to 8c/16 threads? Most mainstream apps have no hope of using these 16 threads as we know. Can't wait for some real world benchmarks. I will pray that this works out, we need some competition.

That's the problem with the numbers. We have known about the 40% IPC increase for a while so that is no news. We still, to this day, do not know how that number is gained.

Is it a per clock vs Piledriver? Per core? Per Clock/watt/core? Is it vs Piledriver? Steamroller? Haswell or Skylake maybe (I doubt it)?

Right now all this is is hype. They are building more hype and to me that is a bad thing. Hype only leads to disappointment. Very few products have ever lived up to the hype that gets built.

According to AMD's slides, it's 40% IPC over Excavator.

Also, from WCCF Tech and another AMD slide (take this one with a grain of salt):"Compared to AMD’s 'Orochi' quad module, eight core die powering the FX 8350, the Zen based desktop Summit Ridge eight core CPU delivers double the performance in Cinebench R15."

 

[Memhorder]

"Zen is delivering 40 percent more IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) than our previous processor."

I think the original statement answers a few question people have.

Cycle = Clock

Previous Processor = Piledriver

 

[Shankovich]

We have been hearing about ZEN for the past 4 years or so, and still there is no ZEN in the market.

After all these years, ZEN is still a concept. I wonder how many more years it's going to take before we see ZEN in the market, IF we EVER see it in the market.

How is it still a concept if they showed a chip on stage....go back to the WCCF boards kid.

 

[jimmysmitty]

"Zen is delivering 40 percent more IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) than our previous processor."

I think the original statement answers a few question people have.

Cycle = Clock

Previous Processor = Piledriver

Actually they came out with Excavator last but not in the top end just in the APUs.

And there are many ways to derive IPC. While it would seem logical to base it on a per clock there is also the per clock per core and since Piledriver is a module based design it is not quite the same per core.

It is absolutely going to have better performance than Piledriver but do you know if that 40% is in single threaded or in multithreaded? I would assume that Zen will be superior in multithreaded since it will have 8 full cores and 8 logical cores (SMT) thus it should be more on par with a Intel LGA 2011 8 core CPU in multithreading.

That is why I say this is all marketing. Until a site like Anandtech or Toms etc have it in their hands everything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[InvalidError]

I would assume that Zen will be superior in multithreaded since it will have 8 full cores and 8 logical cores (SMT)

In SMT, neither core is more "virtual" than the other, you have individual physical cores with resources to keep tabs on two or more threads each.

 

[Memhorder]

I would assume the FX line up IS AMD's top end to date so the 40% would apply to that overall, but who knows until it's dissected and benched.

Investors need to get excited too, your right.

 

[Valkrys]

I would assume the FX line up IS AMD's top end to date so the 40% would apply to that overall, but who knows until it's dissected and benched.

Investors need to get excited too, your right.

They didn`t say their top end, they said their latest. The FX series never got updated passed piledriver. There was steamroller and then excavator after that. Both of which only ever went to their APUs, and excavator only went to their FP1 (mobile high efficiency) APUs. If you compare raw compute between an FX 8350 and an Athlon 5350. The tiny athlon comes in at about 28% that of the 8350 despite being literally 1/4 the CPU. (4 cores @ 2.05Ghz.) And it does this sipping away on a measly 37 watts full system including igpu. The kabini lineup uses excavator architecture with jaguar cores, and is the closest thing to the Zen architecture AMD currently has on the shelves. AMD is calling for a 40% improvement in IPC over that.

 

[Valkrys]

Forgot my purely theoretical paper metrics. A similar processor to the 5350 using zen would be ~39% the computer power of the 8350. Adding in for SMT, you`d be able to expect it to bench at 50-60% of the FX using half the cores, half the clock and 1/5th the power. If this holds to be even remotely true, you can expect a more than significant boost in performance over the current FX lineup and finally something that gives Phenom II owners a reason to upgrade. Now we just gotta wait for reviews, benches, and prices.