AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[griptwister]

You should have seen the previous specs for that game. It required a i7 3930K and a GTX Titan. Jk jk, I'm making up outrageous and irrelevant claims like someone else on this thread...

Anywho, Is the HD 9xxx series going to even be called the 9xxx series? Or is it going to be the 8xxx series. I'm slightly confused. Mainly because of the Mobile re branded graphics.

 

[cowboy44mag]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

 

[m32]

Too many graphs on this page! Fanboy fight?

 

[etayorius]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

I feel the same way... i was expecting a Steamroller FX but there is no info about any FX CPUs nor Desktop roadmaps... it´s like AMD decided to just give the finger to their high end CPUs, the rumor seems very real... maybe they plan to release 6-8 cores CPUs on FM2+ to replace AM3+ and FX? who knows... i was really hoping for an upgrade too, i had a bunch of money saved from olmost a year just to build a nice flashy powerfull PC, but i will either have to go to the Intel side or just wait longer to see what the hell AMD is thinking.

Maybe AMD expect us to Game solely on Kaveri... but they also scrapped the 6 Cores and GDDR5 Plans, so what the heck!? Kaveri will be good but it will not be THAT Good to make the jump from FX8350 to Kaveri... the silence is getting into my nerves, i am starting to think to just go Intel and be done with AMD and their mediocrecy.

 

[griptwister]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

Hold onto your hat Cowboy! AMD isn't done yet! Think about this. If they release a new socket with SteamRoller, it might be compatible with Excavator! It's best to wait, for all we know, They're killing off the FX name, not the processors.

 

[Cazalan]

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

Kaveri won't have a chance of catching the FX-8350. FX-6350 maybe. 8-core will still win for encoding and other proper multi-threaded apps. Older games that are heavily IPC dependent will likely run better on Kaveri.

Pricing wise I'd expect Kaveri to follow in Richland (~$140) footsteps, so it won't be near $200.

Might as well get the FX-8320 and OC it. Yields must be pretty good by now. Amazon has them listed at $144.99!

 

[juanrga]

From rumor to strong rumor to official.

" AMD’s ‘Kaveri’ high-performance APU remains on track and will start shipping to customers in Q4 2013, with first public availability in the desktop component channel very early in Q1 2014.

‘Kaveri’ features up to four ‘Steamroller’ x86 cores, major heterogeneous computing enhancements, and a discrete-level Graphics Core Next (GCN) implementation – AMD’s first high-performance APU to offer GCN. ‘Kaveri’ will be initially offered in the FM2+ package for desktop PCs.

Mobile ‘Kaveri’ products will be available later in the first half of 2014.


Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-confirms-kaveri-will-be-in-the-hands-of-enthusiasts-in-2014/50308.html#ixzz2bQPgU5kh
"


At least it's coming to desktop first and then to mobile.

Technically consistent with their previous statements about launching in the second half of 2013. Just not what people eager to get their hands on it interpreted it as, being available to buy in 2013.

AMD denies the existence of any delay: 2013 --> OEM; 2014 --> end users

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/08/09/amd-kaveri-denial/1

'AMD's ‘Kaveri’ high-performance APU remains on track and will start shipping to customers in Q4 2013,' an AMD spokesperson has confirmed with bit-tech, pointing out that this is in-line with guidance provided by the company at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and Computex events earlier this year. However, the 'customers' the company is referring to are not, as you might think, end-users, but original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who will be building the chips into their products.

 

[juanrga]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

No consider myself an expert, but in a previous post I explained my opinion on why there is not Steamroller FX. It seems to be confirmed by several news now.

With known information, there is no chance that the 4 cores in Kaveri can match a FX-8350. Kaveri CPU would match a FX-6200, being behind a FX-6300.

With HSA software Kaveri APU will match the FX-8350 (destroying it in heavily parallel workloads). Just consider that the FX-8350 has a total maximum performance of 256 GFLOPs, whereas the Kaveri APU has 1050 GFLOPs. Even if only a half of the CUs are used for compute, the APU will be much faster than the FX-8350.

My doubt now is if AMD will release a version of Kaveri with the rumoured 6 Steamroller cores or if it will substitute it with the Carizo APU with 4 Excavator cores.

In my opinion, 6 Steamroller cores would match the FX-8350.

 

[Guest]

I have been Following this thread for quite a while to get the latest scoop on the new Steamroller Arch that will be coming out and a lot of the info is pretty concrete and some not so much! But it seems that people have succumb to the rumor mill lately and are contemplating jumping ship over not hearing anything from AMD! What is another few months to wait for what is really going to happen with the SteamRoller FX line?

I can't wait for the 9000 series GPU to come out, my 7850 is in serious need of an upgrade cuz it seems that it's not to happy running 1440! -_-

 

[etayorius]

AMD will not give any news about CPUs in the next 6 months, if they scrapped Steamroller they will need at least 1-2 more years to come with something new, so don´t expect AMD to release a powerful CPU in the next 6 months or less, even less news about it.

Also, we all know the 6 Core Steamroller was scrapped along with GDDR5, so AMD plan to stick with "FX9000" for the next 1-2 years... SAD NEWS, nothing more to see here except for Kaveri 4 Cores, which will be Good for those with a Dual Core, not even worth the jump from PhenomII x4 980 or x6 1100T.

So you guys either jump on Kaveri or get a flashy "Powerful" FX-9000 series CPU.

I do not know what AMD is thinking, but if i want some real Powerful 4 Core CPU i will just grab the i7 2600k, the only advantage would be HSA and HUMA for Kaveri.

I think GlobalFoundries is to blame, they been leeching off AMD from a while, AMD cannot compete with such a mediocre Foundry who is 2-3 shrinks behind -Intel, at least TSMC is a year and a half ahead of GloFo, so they may just go with them instead of GloFo, but still AMD has to pay a lot of Cash to GloFo even if they do not use them.

 

[gamerk316]

To be fair, I said from the beginning that GDDR5 wasn't going to be used. Aside from latency concerns, you have cost concerns. Using GDDR5 would force AMD to raise prices, putting them on par, platform wise, with Intel. And given Intels IPC edge, that would leave AMD non-competitive. So that part doesn't shock me in the least.

 

[etayorius]

Well we do know that AMD started scrapping from Roadmaps and dodging the Steamroller CPU since Nov 2012, they could be working on something new and if they got something in the works, info could start appearing in 2nd half 2014 and it may probably arrive at 2015.

For the time being we are stuck with FX9590 as the "champion" from AMD until at least late 2014 if they decide to do 6 Steamroller Cores inside FM2+.

It is very clear that the FX9590 is the New boy in CPUs... like i said, nothing more to see here until late 2014 or first half of 2015.

FX is DEAD and so is AM3+

 

[noob2222]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

they are just rumor mongering from the lack of a solid roadmap detailing high end server parts.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130331080217_AMD_We_Are_On_Track_With_Steamroller_Micro_Architecture_in_2013.html

While the company did not unveil what chips will feature Steamroller high-performance x86 cores this year, it implied that the new generation of server-class Opteron chips will be based on Steamroller, the micro-architecture AMD puts a lot of hopes on.
....
The next-generation of Opteron processors was planned to be introduced for the second half of 2014.

The roadmap states that Abu Dhabi, Seoul and Delhi products will be based on stepping C of Orochi design, that is on a Piledriver core.

look familiar? sounds like "warsaw"

Future 28nm low power cpus and apus moved from 2h 2014 to 1h 2014, future 28nm HP 2p-4p moved back? possibly, and likely. How much focus was shifted to getting XB1 and PS4 cpus ready and out?

So SR opteron aka SR FX WAS supposed to be 2h 2014, possible GF delays pushed it back to 1h 2015? which they don't have a published roadmap for.

VR-zone conclusion: "panic AMD are doomed, they don't have anything for 2015!!!!!! AMD is closing its doors at the end of 2014!!!!!."

Ya, kinda sucks waiting even longer, but as long as they have time to get this thing done properly, I say fix it. I have already shown that through employee cost in big corporations - time is money, not power savings, right now xeon & SB-E have that covered.

 

[8350rocks]

As I said before...

The 28nm SOI process @ GF is not mature yet. They are not getting good yields...I would bet all the money on it. It's far easier to get useable CPUs when your entire die size is smaller. A 4 core Kaveri is going to be about 65-70% of the die size or less than a 6-8 core FX on SR architecture. I don't expect that they won't make a SR FX CPU, I just expect it will need time to mature the process before they get sufficient yields to release the CPUs and be profitable at all.

I would expect once Kaveri production is ramped up @ GF on 28nm SOI, then we will see a roadmap from AMD showing SR FX CPUs. The issue lies in the fact that you cannot promise something if you don't know how long it's going to take get decent enough yields to make useable CPU dies from an immature process.

We should see SR FX...it may be delayed into late Q2 or Q3 in 2014...but fret not, it will come. They may even kill the FX name along the way...but I am confident that we will see SR in a CPU (as opposed to APUs only).

 

[The Q6660 Inside]

Well we do know that AMD started scrapping from Roadmaps and dodging the Steamroller CPU since Nov 2012, they could be working on something new and if they got something in the works, info could start appearing in 2nd half 2014 and it may probably arrive at 2015.

For the time being we are stuck with FX9590 as the "champion" from AMD until at least late 2014 if they decide to do 6 Steamroller Cores inside FM2+.

It is very clear that the FX9590 is the New boy in CPUs... like i said, nothing more to see here until late 2014 or first half of 2015.

FX is DEAD and so is AM3+

I would not be so sure, the Warsaw cores can be the basis for a FX refresh.

 

[noob2222]

As I said before...

The 28nm SOI process @ GF is not mature yet. They are not getting good yields...I would bet all the money on it. It's far easier to get useable CPUs when your entire die size is smaller. A 4 core Kaveri is going to be about 65-70% of the die size or less than a 6-8 core FX on SR architecture. I don't expect that they won't make a SR FX CPU, I just expect it will need time to mature the process before they get sufficient yields to release the CPUs and be profitable at all.

I would expect once Kaveri production is ramped up @ GF on 28nm SOI, then we will see a roadmap from AMD showing SR FX CPUs. The issue lies in the fact that you cannot promise something if you don't know how long it's going to take get decent enough yields to make useable CPU dies from an immature process.

We should see SR FX...it may be delayed into late Q2 or Q3 in 2014...but fret not, it will come. They may even kill the FX name along the way...but I am confident that we will see SR in a CPU (as opposed to APUs only).

+1.

There is also the possibility that excavator may be ready by the time GF fixes 28nm SOI yields. So what do you put on the roadmap? only what you know WILL happen. Mass media loves to eat you alive for not producing what you "promised", as already seen with the "28nm HP 2p-4p". They usually don't read the "AMD roadmap subject to change without notice"

 

[cowboy44mag]

Well we do know that AMD started scrapping from Roadmaps and dodging the Steamroller CPU since Nov 2012, they could be working on something new and if they got something in the works, info could start appearing in 2nd half 2014 and it may probably arrive at 2015.

For the time being we are stuck with FX9590 as the "champion" from AMD until at least late 2014 if they decide to do 6 Steamroller Cores inside FM2+.

It is very clear that the FX9590 is the New boy in CPUs... like i said, nothing more to see here until late 2014 or first half of 2015.

FX is DEAD and so is AM3+

AM3+ may be dead, AMD may surprise us. I for one am not jumping to Intel when I can simply upgrade to FX 8350. Jumping to Intel would involve buying a new motherboard (if you want to overclock or get the most out of an i7 your looking at a $300 minimum) and would probably have to get different "approved" RAM (from experience in the past Intel boards are fussy about what RAM they use). The FX-8350 benchmarks aren't that far behind Intel, and in some of the newer multi-threaded tests benchmark better.

Anyone in the same situation as me, not wanting to wait till 2015 for a new processor (and not wanting to ditch AM3+ yet), I think FX-8350 is the way to go. It is a good upgrade from Phenom II 965BE, and I think it is more desirable than the FX-9590. The FX-9590 is impressive (I've also seen where people have overclocked the FX-8350 to near FX-9590 performance) but I think it is going to be hard on any motherboard long term.

With Sony and Microsoft using AMD tech in the new consoles I think the FX-8350 and a new HD-9xxx GPU is going to be hard to beat for gaming. Should at least last for the next few years, and by then AMDs APUs may have the performance of enthusiasts CPUs.

 

[Cazalan]

[strike]Fusion[/strike] HUMA is the future.

 

[juanrga]

AMD will not give any news about CPUs in the next 6 months, if they scrapped Steamroller they will need at least 1-2 more years to come with something new, so don´t expect AMD to release a powerful CPU in the next 6 months or less, even less news about it.

Also, we all know the 6 Core Steamroller was scrapped along with GDDR5, so AMD plan to stick with "FX9000" for the next 1-2 years... SAD NEWS, nothing more to see here except for Kaveri 4 Cores, which will be Good for those with a Dual Core, not even worth the jump from PhenomII x4 980 or x6 1100T.

So you guys either jump on Kaveri or get a flashy "Powerful" FX-9000 series CPU.

I do not know what AMD is thinking, but if i want some real Powerful 4 Core CPU i will just grab the i7 2600k, the only advantage would be HSA and HUMA for Kaveri.

I think GlobalFoundries is to blame, they been leeching off AMD from a while, AMD cannot compete with such a mediocre Foundry who is 2-3 shrinks behind -Intel, at least TSMC is a year and a half ahead of GloFo, so they may just go with them instead of GloFo, but still AMD has to pay a lot of Cash to GloFo even if they do not use them.

I think this is overly-negative. In the first place we wait a lot of information coming in three months, with APU13 conference.

Kaveri CPU will be at the level of an i5 CPU. I think this is powerful enough for most people. If performance of the CPU is not enough, then use HSA software. With HSA software, Kaveri could be much much much faster than a FX-9590. If that is not high performance I don't know what is it.

To be fair, I said from the beginning that GDDR5 wasn't going to be used. Aside from latency concerns, you have cost concerns. Using GDDR5 would force AMD to raise prices, putting them on par, platform wise, with Intel. And given Intels IPC edge, that would leave AMD non-competitive. So that part doesn't shock me in the least.

The latency is a myth and cost is not a concern if the chip is target to enthusiasts (the same people who buy a $1000 CPU or a $1000 GPU). In my opinion, the only concern is the lack of commercial DIMMs, albeit a JETEC standard exist.

 

[noob2222]

To be fair, I said from the beginning that GDDR5 wasn't going to be used. Aside from latency concerns, you have cost concerns. Using GDDR5 would force AMD to raise prices, putting them on par, platform wise, with Intel. And given Intels IPC edge, that would leave AMD non-competitive. So that part doesn't shock me in the least.

actually the GDDR5 was targeted to compete against Iris and probably would have slaughtered it gpu wise. the price point for iris is $468 and $657 and that gives AMD plenty of room. Was it canceled due to functionality, price, or the fact that at a higher price, OEM's would just opt for a Dgpu instead as seen with Iris pro?

only AMD knows the answer.

 

[juanrga]

I am confident that we will see SR in a CPU (as opposed to APUs only).

Well AMD already announced that Berlin comes both as APU and CPU...

 

[cowboy44mag]

After doing a little digging it doesn't look like there is going to be a Steamroller FX. Major bummer. I was hoping for a little advice from the experts on this forum. I have already upgraded to the Sabertooth 990 FX R2.0, arguably the best AMD AM3+ motherboard around. Do you guys think I should switch for the FM2+ board and Kaveri or get an FX-8350? One thing is for sure I'm not going to the FX-9xxx, it may be awesome, and I could care less about power usage, but I don't even want to try to deal with the heat those throw out!!

I use my computer for just about everything and most of my business connections and contracts are obtained online, I also like to video game and transcode video to dvd. I'm thinking that the FX-8350 and possibly a upgrade to the new HD9xxx GPU would be the most powerful solution? Could Kaveri out do those specs?

they are just rumor mongering from the lack of a solid roadmap detailing high end server parts.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130331080217_AMD_We_Are_On_Track_With_Steamroller_Micro_Architecture_in_2013.html

While the company did not unveil what chips will feature Steamroller high-performance x86 cores this year, it implied that the new generation of server-class Opteron chips will be based on Steamroller, the micro-architecture AMD puts a lot of hopes on.
....
The next-generation of Opteron processors was planned to be introduced for the second half of 2014.

The roadmap states that Abu Dhabi, Seoul and Delhi products will be based on stepping C of Orochi design, that is on a Piledriver core.

look familiar? sounds like "warsaw"

Future 28nm low power cpus and apus moved from 2h 2014 to 1h 2014, future 28nm HP 2p-4p moved back? possibly, and likely.

So SR opteron aka SR FX WAS supposed to be 2h 2014, possible GF delays pushed it back to 1h 2015? which they don't have a published roadmap for.

VR-zone conclusion: "panic AMD are doomed."

Ya, kinda sucks waiting even longer, but as long as they have time to get this thing done properly, I say fix it. I have already shown that through employee cost in big corporations - time is money, not power savings, right now xeon & SB-E have that covered.

I hope that Steamroller FX will still come, been looking forward to it for a long time. Will probably wait a few more months (as my 965 is still eating anything I throw at it). If the new Steamroller FX won't be available till 1st or 2nd quarter 2015 will probably upgrade to FX-8350 as a "transitional" upgrade. Could always "retire" my 965 for use in my mom's computer, and when Steamroller FX does come could always use the FX-8350 as a family computer and get everyone off my gaming rig HAHA

 

[8350rocks]

@Cowboy44mag:

I think you'd be amazed at what the 8350 can really do...

 

[os2wiz]

Well we do know that AMD started scrapping from Roadmaps and dodging the Steamroller CPU since Nov 2012, they could be working on something new and if they got something in the works, info could start appearing in 2nd half 2014 and it may probably arrive at 2015.

For the time being we are stuck with FX9590 as the "champion" from AMD until at least late 2014 if they decide to do 6 Steamroller Cores inside FM2+.
FX is DEAD and so is AM3+

Been hearing that dead word too often lately. As long as the heart is beating nothing is dead. I would suggest you can that language until the developers conference in early November. Then if you are right you can beat your breast and jump up and down 10 times if that suits you. There is room within AMD's overall plans for 1 last major release for AM3+ let's wait and see. If not then I along with thousands of other enthusiasts will be pushing for a 6 core Kaveri or and 6 to 8 core excavator.

 

[griptwister]

If AMD does not make a 6 core with near the per-core performance level as SB i5 at a decent price. They can expect me to buy the competition. I could put a MSI Gamer Series Motherboard to use right about now. I'm in favor of the 1ms response times of the USB gamer ports.

Again, I'm not making a purchase till I see the numbers and the information presented directly from AMD. You all should do the same.

IF I'm forced to buy a quad core, it may as well be an i7, as I live down the freeway from Microcenter. But I highly doubt I'll have to resort to such dire needs. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for a AM4/FM2+ (or what ever it may be called) Gamer Series Motherboards. I mainly want 6+ SteamRoller cores. #MoarCores

I just can't see an i5 doing well once a game needs more cores.