AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[de5_Roy]

you guys know that once mantle goes wide and dx12 comes out, core i3 and fx will become interchangeable. i3 will still have worse non-gaming app performance compared to hex cores and higher. fx will still have higher power consumption and higher app performance. reduction of cpu bottleneck doesn't help amd alone.

 

[logainofhades]

@blackstar
@logainofhades
Can you show us benchmarks (both of you)? Not pure specification of consoles, but actual performance.

There are no benchmarks that I am aware of, only specs of their ability. The PS4's GPU is rated for 1.84 teraflop. The HD 7850 is rated at 1.75. The HD 7870 is rated at 2.56. Therefore, the closest equivalent is the HD 7850 at the time PS4 was released. An R7 265's 1.89 would be the closest performance card today.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-ps4-launch,25094.html

http://www.techspot.com/review/504-amd-radeon-7870-7850/page2.html

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r7-265-2gb-video-card-review-with-sapphire-dual-x-r7-265_135733

 

[CooLWoLF]

Do I even need to bring up the "consoles are coded closer to the metal" argument? We know this. So its definitely very hard to beat a $400 console with comparatively cheap PC hardware, UNLESS your talking about a Frankenstein upgrade if you already have monitors/peripherals/case/OS etc.

This argument is just going to remain circular. Everyone here already has their opinions and will not be changing them on the PC vs Xbox1/PS4 debate.

 

[8350rocks]

SMDH, lay off the kool aid man. Z97 will be 5th gen (Broadwell) compatible. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/z97-chipset-brief.html?wapkw=intel+z97+chipset

5th Gen Intel, does not say broadwell...that is likely the haswell refresh

Be careful of Intel marketing/propaganda, it is often intentionally misleading. Those chips are coming this year, and I doubt broadwell will fit into same platform...they will likely require you to buy a new platform.

 

[logainofhades]

That was not marketing or propaganda. Also this.... I used to really respect your insight, but clearly you are showing your colors as just another fanboy with a clear an utter hatred for Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7875/new-unlocked-iris-pro-cpu-broadwell

 

[juanrga]

I highly doubt Microsoft has not taken Mantle into consideration while developing dx12.

dx11 is nothing new and game devs continued using old versions, really just holding things back.

I like AMD but they really just need to keep up with Intel, Nvidia, and Microsoft instead of.. well causing a division because they have low ipc with high power consumption.

They have a chance to go 14nm vs 14nm in the near future so will they take it and become a true competitor for enthusiasts cpu's.

Even the Steamroller was late out of gate and still we do not see a FX version and only embarrassing overpriced superclocked chips.

DX12 ~ DX11 + MANTLE.

As mentioned before to you AMD will use 14nm for 2016 products (if everything goes right). I expect AMD's new x86 arch to offer about 80--90% of the single-threaded performance of Haswell.

I explained dozens of times in this thread why there is no Steamroller FX CPU (there are FX APUs for mobile). By the same reasons given we will not see Excavator FX CPU.

You cannot sit there and say the i3 is a valid gaming cpu. Get a console instead.

Valve and SteamBox partners prove you are wrong. They will be releasing i3 gaming machines.

AM3+ is essentially dead, and FM2+ is just plain sad. I had high hopes for Kaveri, at least on the GPU side, and was quite disappointed. Instead of near HD 7750 performance some were predicting, we got R7 240 performance, which isn't much better than the HD 6670 it replaced. AMD needs a die shrink, badly.

Kaveri top A10 provides 7750 level of performance for rendering. Its iGPU sits between the 7750 DDR3 and the 7750 GDDR5, but more close to the first, because Kaveri relies on slow DDR3 memory. If the GDDR5 version of Kaveri had not been canceled (by problems unrelated to AMD) then you would see the GDDR5 six-core version of Kaveri hitting the 7750-GDDR5.

AMD APU problem are not solved by a "die shrink". The problem is in the DDR3 bottleneck. What AMD needs is a new memory subsystem.

Broadwell will likely not be on LGA 1150...expect a new rash of Z107 boards to come out and no backward compatibility yet again. The haswell refresh was LGA1150's last hoorah...hence no broadwell yet...because Intel knew it would not be compatible.

You are wrong. Broadwell "will be supported by existing LGA1150 motherboards, some with BIOS updates".

http://www.techpowerup.com/201936/intel-desktop-cpu-roadmap-updated.html

Do I even need to bring up the "consoles are coded closer to the metal" argument? We know this. So its definitely very hard to beat a $400 console with comparatively cheap PC hardware, UNLESS your talking about a Frankenstein upgrade if you already have monitors/peripherals/case/OS etc.

This argument is just going to remain circular. Everyone here already has their opinions and will not be changing them on the PC vs Xbox1/PS4 debate.

Not only the well-known >2x API argument has been here shown ad nauseam, but it has been also shown that the GPU in the PS4 is heavily modified. No one can purchase something similar in a PC store.

 

[logainofhades]

7850k can only be paired with up to an R7 250, and AMD recommends the ddr3 version, which is slower than an HD 7750. It is closer to a 7730 in performance. AMD isn't going to recommend a far faster GPU for its dual graphics combinations. Equivalent performance of the Kaveri GPU is an R7 240 GDDR5 or a ddr3 equipped 250.

 

[8350rocks]

That was not marketing or propaganda. Also this.... I used to really respect your insight, but clearly you are showing your colors as just another fanboy with a clear an utter hatred for Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7875/new-unlocked-iris-pro-cpu-broadwell

Well, they must have changed that recently, because the last news I had was broadwell was not going to be compatible with LGA1150. Though, I must confess, I have not bothered to follow broadwell for some time. Work on the project I am on has been pretty heavy lately, plus with the AMD events going on...no time.

As for being a fanboy, I can be objective about Intel, yes they are ahead now in some metrics. AMD will be catching up soon though. Also, I would like to point out...Intel marketing and propaganda is renowned for being misleading. Their 14nm process tech is going to be closer to ~15-16nm by all other industry estimations...so...it is what it is. Note: I have also told Juan he frequently takes AMD marketing/propaganda out of context or misinterprets it as well.

Take that as you will.

EDIT: Did some digging, Z97 is the new part set that was coming...Z87 was the part set broadwell was not going to be compatible with. I stand corrected.

 

[8350rocks]

7850k can only be paired with up to an R7 250, and AMD recommends the ddr3 version, which is slower than an HD 7750. It is closer to a 7730 in performance. AMD isn't going to recommend a far faster GPU for its dual graphics combinations. Equivalent performance of the Kaveri GPU is an R7 240 GDDR5 or a ddr3 equipped 250.

I actually test the R7240 DDR3 version with the 7850k. In dual graphics it does alright. There are still some missed frames, though it does make several games playable that would be barely playable otherwise. Admittedly, AMD are still working things out with the drivers for that, though I will say, the 14.6 catalyst update seems to have helped quite a bit. Each batch of drivers get continually better about lots of things...

 

[logainofhades]

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

 

[iron8orn]

yeah the mobile FX... might as well as just sent the FX out to sea in flames. (was nice while it latest)

 

[8350rocks]

you guys know that once mantle goes wide and dx12 comes out, core i3 and fx will become interchangeable. i3 will still have worse non-gaming app performance compared to hex cores and higher. fx will still have higher power consumption and higher app performance. reduction of cpu bottleneck doesn't help amd alone.

Except games like Watchdogs and Crysis 3 will still run on 4-6 cores...2-4 of which the i3 will not have.

You did miss that key part.

 

[8350rocks]

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

 

[logainofhades]

Given AMD's recent track record, I have my doubts. I would love to see them pull it off though.

 

[8350rocks]

Given AMD's recent track record, I have my doubts. I would love to see them pull it off though.

They gave Jim Keller free reign... *maniacal laughter*...

 

[vmN]

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

Why do I doubt that? That simply seems like a way to big jump for a company with limited resources.

 

[iron8orn]

Maybe limited in some resources but the HSA foundation is certainly not limited in brilliant minds and I think many of the experts they have could teach us all a few things.

 

[8350rocks]

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

Why do I doubt that? That simply seems like a way to big jump for a company with limited resources.

True, but why plan just 1 step ahead...when starting a new uarch...you could plan 2-3-4 steps ahead? Jim Keller is not constrained by the rules from BD/PD/SR/EX architecture on this one...

 

[de5_Roy]

Except games like Watchdogs and Crysis 3 will still run on 4-6 cores...2-4 of which the i3 will not have.

You did miss that key part.

oh you mean the non-mantle, directx 11x games that play just as much on haswell/refresh core i3 (but not pentium) and fx6300? i just checked (edit2clab.pl benches), haswwell/refresh core i3 get outperformed by fx8350 as usual but keeps up or beats fx6300 in both those games. fx6300 needs overclocking to beat core i3. sb/ivb will get outperformed by fx6300 like i said, due to lacking staying power.

 

[Iron124]

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

Why do I doubt that? That simply seems like a way to big jump for a company with limited resources.

I read an article recently that AMD has gone back to the drawing board with their CPU's, and are building a brand new architecture from scratch, due to release in late 2015 or early 2016.

Until then, I think they're gonna stick with APU's and Graphics Cards.

 

[juanrga]

That was not marketing or propaganda. Also this.... I used to really respect your insight, but clearly you are showing your colors as just another fanboy with a clear an utter hatred for Intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7875/new-unlocked-iris-pro-cpu-broadwell

Well, they must have changed that recently, because the last news I had was broadwell was not going to be compatible with LGA1150. Though, I must confess, I have not bothered to follow broadwell for some time. Work on the project I am on has been pretty heavy lately, plus with the AMD events going on...no time.

As for being a fanboy, I can be objective about Intel, yes they are ahead now in some metrics. AMD will be catching up soon though. Also, I would like to point out...Intel marketing and propaganda is renowned for being misleading. Their 14nm process tech is going to be closer to ~15-16nm by all other industry estimations...so...it is what it is. Note: I have also told Juan he frequently takes AMD marketing/propaganda out of context or misinterprets it as well.

You have told me lots of things and you have been corrected in each one of them.

Intel 14nm will be what the rest of industry calls ~16nm. But, as explained to you before, TSMC 16nmFF/FF+ are in reality a hybrid of 16nm and 20nm, whereas Glofo/Samsung 14nm FinFET is also a hybrid of 14nm and 20nm.

Moreover, Intel 14nm will be ready in 2015, whereas AMD 14/16FF new APUS/CPUs products will be available on 2016 and will compete with Skylake on Intel 10nm.

Stop pretending that AMD will have a process advantage, because this is not true.

I hope AMD does catch up soon. I want to see competition. I don't really care what xxnm they are on. I just want performance and I don't want an extra space heater in the summer. If AMD could at least match Haswell, I would be pretty damn impressed.

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

No. Your new 'prediction' makes the same sense that when you claimed that Steamroller would be faster than Haswell

Given AMD's recent track record, I have my doubts. I would love to see them pull it off though.

They gave Jim Keller free reign... *maniacal laughter*...

And limited resources as well.

 

[juanrga]

Forget haswell, on par with skylake is coming...

Why do I doubt that? That simply seems like a way to big jump for a company with limited resources.

True, but why plan just 1 step ahead...when starting a new uarch...you could plan 2-3-4 steps ahead? Jim Keller is not constrained by the rules from BD/PD/SR/EX architecture on this one...

What part of "limited resources" isn't understood?

AMD is relying in a modular design and automated tools because lacks the money for a monolithic hand-crafted design. Automated design will reduce performance by about 20%. I don't know the penalty of using a modular approach.

 

[juanrga]

I read an article recently that AMD has gone back to the drawing board with their CPU's, and are building a brand new architecture from scratch, due to release in late 2015 or early 2016.

Until then, I think they're gonna stick with APU's and Graphics Cards.

AMD is designing APUs/SoCs. The new CPU part is being designed by Keller and the new GPU part by Koduri. AMD will also release CPUs but those are secondary: APUs/SoCs will be the main product. Here you can see some details:

http://tech4gamers.com/amd-2014-2016-roadmap-20nm-project-skybridge-and-k12-arm-for-2016/

 

[anxiousinfusion]

Whatever you are smoking, that makes you think the PS4 GPU is just under an R9 280, please stop. It is closer in performance to an HD 7850.

True, and I think that's only on paper! I used to believe that claim up until October last year. The consoles appear to be demonstrably lower than even that considering they can barely handle games despite compromising resolution and/or framerate.

 

[jdwii]

Weird seems like with Mantle its really taking advantage of all cores. Starting to be happier that i picked my 8350fx over a I5 more and more(although i had little choice since i already had a 200$ Amd board)

As I mentioned during months the new consoles would push FX-8350 for gaming, because developers would not rely on two/three threads. I also gave a link to a poll among game developers, where all of them agreed on that 8350 was more future gaming proof than an IB i5. I did repeat the link to the poll several times.

Moreover, one of the aims of MANTLE is to eliminate the DX11 barriers that impeded an effective use of 8 cores.

Since MANTLE announcement, we have seen benchmarks of new games where the FX-8350 hits i7s.

AMD is extending desktop Piledriver CPUs to 2015, because hexa-cores and octo-cores will be competitive up to new x86 arch is ready.

Where is the surprise?

I'm not too fond of AMD APUs at the moment. They don't have a strong enough upgrade path. If the AM and FM platforms were united, I think they'd be absolutely killer entry level systems, but they're not.

Intel lower end is not much better. You end up with some artificially gimped chipset.

AMD will look at lot better when you can buy a cheap APU and motherboard, while having the ability to put a 16 core dCPU in that same motherboard.

The problem with Intel and trying to look to future upgrades is that they go through sockets so fast, that you're not helping yourself by thinking you're going to upgrade to a new CPU. Once that new socket comes out, the older chips start to rise in price (usually).

I pretty much tell people that if they can't afford GTX 760 or R9 280 with an FX 6300 that there's no point in building a gaming PC until you can afford that.

I've done the upgrade crawl before from low end and it's pretty annoying when new games come out and you don't meet minimum requirements anymore (Pentium Gs and some APUs fall into this category). It's just not worth it. You end up buying the cheap CPU + more expensive CPU instead of just the more expensive CPU. And most of the time you also need a new motherboard.

We really need 3m/6c APUs for them to be viable gaming machines.

You can still go entry level on Intel without being overly gimped. You can pair up a pentium G 3258, with an H97 pro4, and still overclock it. Hell even the ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 has non Z overclock feature. Probably wouldn't want to overclock much at all with that board, but the feature is there. Don't really need to overclock Intel all that much though. They are already pretty strong right out of the box.

Did you miss the part of my post where I stated that Pentium G won't even make minimum requirements of some new games that have been released?

My entire point was that if you're going to spend $500 on a low end gaming PC that can't even play all the new games that come out, you might as well buy a console instead.

Unlocked Pentium G is a bait and switch. "buy Intel you can overclock this cheap CPU!" "wow this CPU can't even play any games, I better upgrade to a more expensive Intel CPU, I already have the motherboard!"

And then of course, you have Intel halo marketing effect, where people look at 4770k and higher beating on AMD and then think that a low end Intel is better than anything else too.

Look at the pentium listed earlier. 3.0ghz compared to 4.1ghz. That's a 37% increase in clock speed. The two are a lot closer in single thread than you think. You are just used to seeing high end Intel turbo boost to 4ghz in reviews, comparing base speeds, and then going "wow, AMD is 60% slower IPC! The stock speed of 8350 is 4ghz and the 4770k is 3.5ghz, HORRIBLE IPC AMD!"

When in fact they are running at same clock speed thanks to AMD turbo being broken and Intel turbo working very well, specially on a test bench.

http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/7

Look at the frame rates. Now look at the frame times. Now look at time spent beyond 16.7ms. I don't get how "empty frame rate" is such a massive criticism against AMD hardware, yet when Intel has the same issue, no one cares.

The i3 is a valid gaming CPU. That system would be far better than a console. You are kidding yourself to think otherwise. I cannot consider any AMD cpu for a gaming system at this point, unless you live near a microcenter. I love their GPU's, but their CPU's just do not impress me anymore, for a gaming rig. I do want a Kabini based HTPC, though. I really hope the new arch they are working on is a winner. I want to see competition. Right now there really isn't any on the CPU side. Faildozer's concept was a bad direction to go in. Considering they are scrapping it, AMD realizes this as well.

I disagree to a point, A lot of newer games are using more cores, Watch dogs is something i will be testing. But lets keep in mind the 6300 plus a 30$ cooler is a pretty nice Amd setup and a 8350FX in the latest games is actually doing better then i expected. Under my benchmarks it seems like everything makes since but gaming why is the 8350FX next to the I5 when the performance per clock on Piledriver is 10% worse then my old phenom let alone anything Intel makes, i came to the conclusion that maybe game dev's are using some instruction sets on the CPU itself better or ones that perform the same on both pieces of hardware? I know in Arena chess using the default engine my 8350fx got beat so badly when my friend used his I5 Haswell at 3.2Ghz(mine 4.3Ghz)

As it stands now i build many Pentium dual core machines with 250X and i can get a decent Intel board for 50$ and this is a 400$ PC gaming build that beats anything Intel has except in general performance and then its "good enough". Then like i keep saying because Intel uses half the power you can upgrade to a I5 later and then GPU.
My brother has a A10 5800K and i just gave him my old 6950HD(750 TI performance) i did not expect it to bottleneck as bad as it is and i have it clocked at 4.4Ghz.