AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[The Q6660 Inside]

I love fresh MS bashing in the morning, hahaha.

And in regards to the RAM convo... SRAM is like on-die RAM or packaged RAM? Packaged RAM works wonders, but limits your upgrade path, since making external modules would be a lot slower and prolly slow down more than speed up things; that's a totally without-deep-knowledge assumption.

Cheers!

If ESRAM is very similar to EDRAM in concept, then we could take the Xbox 360's Xenos as an example, as that had EDRAM soldered on to the GPU itself. But I think AMD is still going to be stuck with DDR3 for Kaveri. Then again, I am no expert on RAM myself when it comes to these "other" types.

 

[hcl123]

ESRAM is not soldered anywhere, its *integral* part of the APU die... otherwise it would miss the "advantage" of being "SRAM", it would be better to be eDRAM.

http://www.vgleaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/block_gpu.jpg?950834

Kaveri could be identical but with only 8 SC... perhaps 16MB of ESRAM would be enough then...

 

[hcl123]

did you count the slowly rising cost of desktop ddr3 ram? for budget/entry level, higher cost could become an issue. in addition to that, all the quad/tri channel memory kits i've seen cost a lot more than dual channel kits. i assume it's because of the validation process.

Naturally it could cost up to 50% more, its 3 sticks instead of 2. If it costs less than 50% more you'll be already gaining. Nevertheless if Kaveri will go for FM2+ which will have the A85X chipset, it is almost certain it will come with only 2 channels of DDR3.

So wonder what kind of ESRAM or L3 they will use... if any...

 

[nforce4max]

Interesting thread but I hate Winblows 8 more than I "Millennium" edition. Forced to use it school -_- without mouse and keyboard >.<
I haven't kept up to date abut DDR4 but the chat here says a lot that we're in for another era of high priced ram but better hope that it is not another run like Rdram was.

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Interesting thread but I hate Winblows 8 more than I dislike "Millennium" edition. Forced to use it school -_- without mouse and keyboard >.<
I haven't kept up to date abut DDR4 but the chat here says a lot that we're in for another era of high priced ram but better hope that it is not another run like Rdram was.

BEHOLD, THE Z790i WITH A DDR4 MEMORY CONTROLLER! The switch to DDR4 will be another annoyance and performance upgrade like the switch to DDR3 , ala ye olde' nForce and custom northbridges.

 

[esrever]

I love fresh MS bashing in the morning, hahaha.

And in regards to the RAM convo... SRAM is like on-die RAM or packaged RAM? Packaged RAM works wonders, but limits your upgrade path, since making external modules would be a lot slower and prolly slow down more than speed up things; that's a totally without-deep-knowledge assumption.

Cheers!

If ESRAM is very similar to EDRAM in concept, then we could take the Xbox 360's Xenos as an example, as that had EDRAM soldered on to the GPU itself. But I think AMD is still going to be stuck with DDR3 for Kaveri. Then again, I am no expert on RAM myself when it comes to these "other" types.

The ESRAM is a L3 to the GPU+CPU like the block on intel's GT3-e. This will be SRAM on the die tho compared to dram on a bus for haswell. The latency will be like L3 latency instead of main memory latency with SRAM. Basically, the xbox one will just have a 32MB shared L3 between CPU and GPU.

 

[8350rocks]

Gah, what is with these flags and faces! Any explanation? On the topic of FM2b APUs, I think they may be waiting for 28nm FD-SOI from GF to ramp up.

It could be, the plans at GF are clearly future going in this respect, down to the 10nm node.
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/04/gfs-two-flavors-of-fd-soi-kengeri-explains-exclusive-asn-qa/
(THAT IS AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH A TOP EXECUTIVE OF GF)

Besides porting a design from "planar" bulk to "planar" FD-DOI is the less complicated of all transitions so far... that has been one strong point of STMicro on the marketing front. Planar "bulk" and "FD-SOI" share the same BEOF(back end of line) steps ... and some middle to...

But i think it was already revealed (don't remember where but i read it) in an exclusive interview with AMD that Kaveri will debut on "bulk" process. If its low power low clock, mobile parts, as Richland also launched mobile first, is not a bad bet.

EDIT:
50% better at Vdd= 1 volt and 200% at 0.6v.. kaveri could gain much more than 60% perf/power, clearly ahead of intel, cherry on top of cake to "knock your socks off", "forward back gate biasing" was able to get 40% more clock than without it ... simple (it is a relative simple process) is beautiful lol

http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/06/fully-depleted-soi-and-more-at-vlsi-kyoto-some-knock-your-socks-off-papers-2/
(just read the head lines of those VLSI (kyoto) conference presentations)

And they will catch intel at 14nm, they even plan to reach there first (finfet is quite harder to push and do right)... a bold plan by any metric...

http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/06/which-will-hit-the-14nm-jackpot-first-fd-soi-or-finfet-gauntlet-down-race-on-2/

I also think AMD is delaying for FD-SOI since the conversion is not radically difficult. This would also give them a large process advantage in performance/watt to help close the gap.

Additionally...if the GF roadmap for FD-SOI is to be believed, then AMD could be working on 14nm in 2H 2014 and 10nm shortly after Intel launches 14nm Broadwell in 2015. If they're at 28nm, and have the opportunity to skip 20nm to go to 14nm FD-SOI instead...I would think they'd be fools not to go all the way to 14nm if production can ramp in time for the fall release schedule in 2014. Though, as bold as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if 14nm FD-SOI isn't ready until early 2015.

 

[8350rocks]

edit:
Kabini laptops available in US
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/31811-kabini-laptops-available-in-us
AMD leaks model numbers of future Kabini APUs
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013062701_AMD_leaks_model_numbers_of_future_Kabini_APUs.html
Microsoft Xbox One Cracked Opened: First Photos of Hardware Inside Xbox One Emerge.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20130627222108_Microsoft_Xbox_One_Cracked_Opened_First_Photos_of_Hardware_Inside_Xbox_One_Emerge.html

*sigh* I honestly need a new laptop, but I procrastinated getting one while win7 was still available on new OEM machines. I don't want to waste money on a Win8 OEM license built into the cost of a laptop either.

Anyone know where I can buy an intact OEM AMD laptop chassis? I'll either put win7 on it, or Ubuntu 13.04. I honestly would like to get one of the Kabini models...but I just don't see any reason to get windows 8, I'll wipe the HDD on that thing so fast M$'s head will spin, and it's a waste of time, effort, and money to pay for software I would rather pour gasoline on...and have to remove from my PC.

Perhaps someone makes an AMD laptop with Ubuntu on it?

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

edit:
Kabini laptops available in US
http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/31811-kabini-laptops-available-in-us
AMD leaks model numbers of future Kabini APUs
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013062701_AMD_leaks_model_numbers_of_future_Kabini_APUs.html
Microsoft Xbox One Cracked Opened: First Photos of Hardware Inside Xbox One Emerge.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20130627222108_Microsoft_Xbox_One_Cracked_Opened_First_Photos_of_Hardware_Inside_Xbox_One_Emerge.html

*sigh* I honestly need a new laptop, but I procrastinated getting one while win7 was still available on new OEM machines. I don't want to waste money on a Win8 OEM license built into the cost of a laptop either.

Anyone know where I can buy an intact OEM AMD laptop chassis? I'll either put win7 on it, or Ubuntu 13.04. I honestly would like to get one of the Kabini models...but I just don't see any reason to get windows 8, I'll wipe the HDD on that thing so fast M$'s head will spin, and it's a waste of time, effort, and money to pay for software I would rather pour gasoline on...and have to remove from my PC.

Perhaps someone makes an AMD laptop with Ubuntu on it?

I would find a decent Kabini laptop with W8, wipe the HDD and install Glorious Mint or Ubuntu! System76 only uses Intel, so no go there.

 

[8350rocks]

I would find a decent Kabini laptop with W8, wipe the HDD and install Glorious Mint or Ubuntu! System76 only uses Intel, so no go there.

Yes, I actually googled the subject first and found nothing from someone using AMD. Even HP, who offers Ubuntu natively on some PCs, seem to be reluctant to put Ubuntu on an AMD anything except the E1-E2 integrated CPU models...(Yuck...no thanks).

 

[8350rocks]

Whats wrong with windows 8. If its the start menu I already got one added. Windows 8 loads up virtually instantly too.

It's not really a start menu, I played with the "new Win8" and it's start button. It's actually a "start button shortcut" to the same "start menu" as before that you must utilize in the same way as before the "new start button".

If I am going to go through this BS with Winblows 8 and they want me to jump through hoops to re-learn winblows all over again...I will just go to Ubuntu because, frankly, it's better anyway. The machines I have on Win7 64 will keep running it, and all my new machines will either be Win 7 64 or Ubuntu 64...(thank god I had the wherewithal to buy a full version of Win7 x64)

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Whats wrong with windows 8. If its the start menu I already got one added. Windows 8 loads up virtually instantly too.

Whats wrong with windows 8. If its the start menu I already got one added. Windows 8 loads up virtually instantly too.

It's not really a start menu, I played with the "new Win8" and it's start button. It's actually a "start button shortcut" to the same "start menu" as before that you must utilize in the same way as before the "new start button".

If I am going to go through this BS with Winblows 8 and they want me to jump through hoops to re-learn winblows all over again...I will just go to Ubuntu because, frankly, it's better anyway. The machines I have on Win7 64 will keep running it, and all my new machines will either be Win 7 64 or Ubuntu 64...(thank god I had the wherewithal to buy a full version of Win7 x64)

I have used Windows 8 myself, and it feels quite fast, but until it is fully mature and M$ does not pull B$. It just feels so tablety....... Sure I can dish out a few bux for Start8 or some free alternative like Pokki, but I honestly feel fine running Vista Ultimate and 7 Pro x64 with their benefits.

 

[esrever]

There is really no reason to switch to win8 if you have 7 but if you buy a computer with win8, its a good OS and better in many ways to 7. Its just slightly different. Not even much difference really. There was a bigger difference from windows xp to windows vista in terms of doing anything.

 

[noob2222]

If you like the technical aspect of silicon technology, these are some interesting pesentations to be found.

http://www.soiconsortium.org/fully-depleted-soi/presentations/

one from GF

http://www.soiconsortium.org/fully-depleted-soi/presentations/june-2013/Shigeru%20Shimauchi%20-%20SoC%20Differentiation%20FDSOI%20Japan.pdf

AMD's biggest delay could have been deciding not to go bulk, but instead waiting for GF.
With GF's track record, AMD is wise to start with the smaller chip (ie trinity @246mm2 vs FX @315mm2) since AMD is likely paying for each wafer now instead of "usable chips".

 

[noob2222]

p.s., richland's mobile review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-review-part-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance

 

[palladin9479]

p.s., richland's mobile review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-review-part-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance

Their backhanded compliments at the end were funny. They absolutely could not write a positive review without trying to shoehorn in an Intel recommendation.

 

[juanrga]

p.s., richland's mobile review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-review-part-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance

Their backhanded compliments at the end were funny. They absolutely could not write a positive review without trying to shoehorn in an Intel recommendation.

There is one difference. This review has started the ire of Intel fanboys, who are attacking the reviewer by saying something bad about Haswell

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327849

 

[viridiancrystal]

p.s., richland's mobile review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-review-part-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance

Their backhanded compliments at the end were funny. They absolutely could not write a positive review without trying to shoehorn in an Intel recommendation.

That conclusion page could be torn apart pieces by piece how selective, contradictory, and sometimes straight up wrong it is. It is terrifying coming out of a professional reviewer.

[This is where I would post something relevant about steamroller, if there was anything remotely new to post.]

 

[jdwii]

Whats wrong with windows 8. If its the start menu I already got one added. Windows 8 loads up virtually instantly too.

The more i play games the more i hate it now i just realized no FPS limiter works on W8 as of now which i want for sims 3. I feel like having windows 8 on my PC is like a punishment.

 

[jdwii]

When writing a paper in college i remember to always look back at Anandtech so i know what a bias article sounds like. After taking college classes for writing you know how bad that site is. Yes Tomshardware has a lot of typos on their normal articles but its not biased they just need a editor hell i'm sure people would help them for free.

Spelling and grammar is fixed a biased article changes the writers view.

 

[hcl123]

Gah, what is with these flags and faces! Any explanation? On the topic of FM2b APUs, I think they may be waiting for 28nm FD-SOI from GF to ramp up.

It could be, the plans at GF are clearly future going in this respect, down to the 10nm node.
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/04/gfs-two-flavors-of-fd-soi-kengeri-explains-exclusive-asn-qa/
(THAT IS AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH A TOP EXECUTIVE OF GF)

Besides porting a design from "planar" bulk to "planar" FD-DOI is the less complicated of all transitions so far... that has been one strong point of STMicro on the marketing front. Planar "bulk" and "FD-SOI" share the same BEOF(back end of line) steps ... and some middle to...

But i think it was already revealed (don't remember where but i read it) in an exclusive interview with AMD that Kaveri will debut on "bulk" process. If its low power low clock, mobile parts, as Richland also launched mobile first, is not a bad bet.

EDIT:
50% better at Vdd= 1 volt and 200% at 0.6v.. kaveri could gain much more than 60% perf/power, clearly ahead of intel, cherry on top of cake to "knock your socks off", "forward back gate biasing" was able to get 40% more clock than without it ... simple (it is a relative simple process) is beautiful lol

http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/06/fully-depleted-soi-and-more-at-vlsi-kyoto-some-knock-your-socks-off-papers-2/
(just read the head lines of those VLSI (kyoto) conference presentations)

And they will catch intel at 14nm, they even plan to reach there first (finfet is quite harder to push and do right)... a bold plan by any metric...

http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2013/06/which-will-hit-the-14nm-jackpot-first-fd-soi-or-finfet-gauntlet-down-race-on-2/

I also think AMD is delaying for FD-SOI since the conversion is not radically difficult. This would also give them a large process advantage in performance/watt to help close the gap.

Additionally...if the GF roadmap for FD-SOI is to be believed, then AMD could be working on 14nm in 2H 2014 and 10nm shortly after Intel launches 14nm Broadwell in 2015. If they're at 28nm, and have the opportunity to skip 20nm to go to 14nm FD-SOI instead...I would think they'd be fools not to go all the way to 14nm if production can ramp in time for the fall release schedule in 2014. Though, as bold as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if 14nm FD-SOI isn't ready until early 2015.

No need for that, 28nm FD-SOI is already half node shrink compared from 28nm bulk/PD-SOI (EDIT: meaning is more like 24-22nm shrink, not 28nm, compared with current 32nm bulk or PD-SOI... almost a full node ~50% ) (EDIT 2: besides they still have T-RAM (which is only 1 T + 1 Thyristor, comparing with 6T) for the likes of L3 and ESRAM, this could give an additional shrink by the large cache structures, and better to debut at (supposedly) 28nm than 14nm, this last one which is also an hybrid from 20nm BEOL + 14nm FEOL... this T-RAM could give another 10% shrink factor for the supposed 28nm FD-SOI, making chips comparatively a little smaller than with intel 22nm finfet)

"28nm Bulk to 28FDSOI migration will have half node advantage vs full node migration to 20nm bulk"
(slide 5)
http://www.soiconsortium.org/fully-depleted-soi/presentations/april-2013/Subramani%20Kengeri%20-%20GF%20-%20SoC%20Differentiation%20FDSOI.pdf

more advantages
http://www.soiconsortium.org/fully-depleted-soi/presentations/june-2013/David%20Jacquet%20-%20FD-SOI%20workshop%20in%20Kyoto.pdf

So this could explain the >30% (almost 50%) shrink evidenced by that SR (supposed) die, which is NOT SR... but a module with 4 threads per module...

https://securecdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/500/9389/original.jpg

... probably "excavator" at 28nm FD-SOI which is close 50% smaller, that is why so many things doubled... if that is not a FAKE... but a superimposition on a PD module, of a EXV module alone, forgetting to shown the corresponding L2 SRAM shrink, since the right side the "pink" structures of the L2 arrays is the same size of PD...

EDIT 3 :
cheaper and much faster to develop than finfet on bulk ... up to 50% at around the 20nm sizes ... they gotta be kidding me lol

http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2012/11/ibs-study-concludes-fd-soi-most-cost-effective-technology-choice-at-28nm-and-20nm/

 

[hcl123]

I love fresh MS bashing in the morning, hahaha.

And in regards to the RAM convo... SRAM is like on-die RAM or packaged RAM? Packaged RAM works wonders, but limits your upgrade path, since making external modules would be a lot slower and prolly slow down more than speed up things; that's a totally without-deep-knowledge assumption.

Cheers!

If ESRAM is very similar to EDRAM in concept, then we could take the Xbox 360's Xenos as an example, as that had EDRAM soldered on to the GPU itself. But I think AMD is still going to be stuck with DDR3 for Kaveri. Then again, I am no expert on RAM myself when it comes to these "other" types.

The ESRAM is a L3 to the GPU+CPU like the block on intel's GT3-e. This will be SRAM on the die tho compared to dram on a bus for haswell. The latency will be like L3 latency instead of main memory latency with SRAM. Basically, the xbox one will just have a 32MB shared L3 between CPU and GPU.

The diffrence of SRAM and eDRAM is basically in the kind of "memory cells", though Mosys propagate eDRAM was "SRAM" because they use specially tuned transistorizes with that capacitor. A "SRAM" cell is usually 6T-SRAM or 6 transistors per cell ( that is why is very bulky, but there are versions with 3T and 4T (AMD and others patents), and versions with 8T (AMD uses it) and even with 10T (AMD patents))... while a eDRAM cell is 1 transistor + 1 capacitor.

Being a cache means is completely "tagged" for the purposes of the addressing/access style of caches, meaning those "tag files" are usually 6T(or more)-SRAM structures in a CAM (content addressable memory) format... and this independent of "data storage" cell formats, that is, there can be caches with tags files on CAM and SRAM structures, while the "memory per se" is eDRAM with 1 transistor+ 1 capacitor per cell.

This is the case of of intel CristalWell, the tag files are SRAM CAMs "on die", and its huge Tag files since the size of memory they address is also huge compared with any normal cache that is in the couple of MBs. So in CW the "memory cells themselves" are out side of die and are like DRAM (eDRAM = 1T + 1C)

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=pt-BR&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20130610_602912.html&usg=ALkJrhixtCw4lQinRZXjNXye9qA8clxL2w

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/602/912/8_s.jpg
(IMAGE)

IMO its not the best approach, neither in performance neither neither in space wasted, neither in power... better would be to have everything in the same place, but intel is felling arrogant i think....

AMD ESRAM is different... its all in the same place, on die... and it doesn't have bulky CAM structures, its a pseudo-cache with the tag information on the same "cell structures" of the data... i think its even in the same row address of the data, that is, the GPU which controls it on behalf of the CPU+GPU, accesses it more like external DRAM memory than a cache... its very clever, no wonder MSFT choose it for XB one...

http://www.vgleaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/block_gpu.jpg?950834

There are drawbacks in any case, intel with a L4 is privilege more the CPU and compute parts, while ESRAM is clearly better for graphics. But the greater disadvantage of intel is being "off-die", while the greater disadvantage of AMD is being relatively too small.

 

[hcl123]

p.s., richland's mobile review

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7106/amds-a105750m-review-part-1-the-apu-and-radeon-hd-8650g-performance

Their backhanded compliments at the end were funny. They absolutely could not write a positive review without trying to shoehorn in an Intel recommendation.

There is one difference. This review has started the ire of Intel fanboys, who are attacking the reviewer by saying something bad about Haswell

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2327849

That is usually what fanboys do(edit)... and they are very spoiled... better for review sites would be excuse themselves from presenting anything "shoehorned", that would be pure journalism, like
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=pt-br&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2Fcolumn%2Fkaigai%2F20110301_430044.html
... but they live from "clicks" so the temptation is overwhelming(which has influence in everything, most included partiality)... you raise them now you have to putt up with them AT! .. lol (next time use a condom lol)

 

[Cazalan]

Kabini Desktop (A6-5200)

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-500-a60-Desktop-Black/dp/B00CPG7URI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1372636507&sr=8-8&keywords=A6-5200

Seems a bit steep for a $73 APU. It's more expensive than A8-5500 Trinity desktops.

 

[8350rocks]

Kabini Desktop (A6-5200)

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-500-a60-Desktop-Black/dp/B00CPG7URI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1372636507&sr=8-8&keywords=A6-5200

Seems a bit steep for a $73 APU. It's more expensive than A8-5500 Trinity desktops.

HP is floundering a bit right now, it doesn't surprise me to see them gouging a bit to try to recoup some of their losses.