AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[de5_Roy]

Does anyone know if AMD has a GPU planned to answer to the GTX Titan (or GTX 785).

rumor is amd is working on a new dual gpu card codenamed 'malta'. the previous rumored dual gpu board was called new zealand iirc.

intel **** blocks itself by purposely disabling features. Thats why intel still has so much competition at the low end. Especially when you consider pricing.

true.

And how many Intel low cost solutions actually represent good value for money over an entire setup, sure they have x86 performance but thats about it. The rest is dull and drab and the quality of Motherboards down in the $50-120 range is beyond shocking. If a person has only $250 odd for board, chip and RAM AMD offerings make far more sense. It is why Intel apart from on Toms and Anandtech occupy no market sub $200 because their offerings are just BORING.

i recently took a look at entry level amd and intel motherboards, turns out that both have similarly specced and priced motherboards. only high end amd motherboards set themselves apart from high end intel motherboards in terms of value. cheap motherboard is just cheap.

As for power, SR is expected to utilize RCM so will see the proper benefits of it, I would assume though the power numbers will drop irrespective.

are you absolutely sure about steamroller using resonant clock mesh technology? i've been wondering how much efficiency it'll bring to sr cpus and apus. tbh i dunno how much power efficiency will come from switching from 32nm to 28nm. i think that the architecture will have to bring the majority of efficiency improvements. more efficiency -> better mobile asics -> more revenue.

btw, will amd's including apus further 64bit gaming? moar ram!

crysis 3 cpu scaling from techspot:
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html
moar cores (as long as it's 8)!

future of tressfx (when implemented in consoles):
http://vr-zone.com/articles/dead-or-alive-5-director-justifies-player-ability-to-manually-jiggle-character-s-breasts/19106.html

 

[mayankleoboy1]

AMD improving their IMC, L1 and L2 cache on their own would increase performance by 6-7% IPC

 

[amdfangirl]

64bit gaming- ha! that's something I've been looking forward to since 2005 (and been promised about it too).

Be nice if the next C&C was 64bit... have massive tank battles.

 

[de5_Roy]

i realized that here we all are thinking that the consoles will be successful so that multi-core-friendly gaming, 64-bit, hsa, 4k playback all these will accelerate.
what if consoles start low and stay mediocre? how successful has wii u been so far?
i think that if ps4 is successful in usa and america, it'll be enough.

 

[truegenius]

64bit gaming- ha! that's something I've been looking forward to since 2005 (and been promised about it too).

Be nice if the next C&C was 64bit... have massive tank battles.

your profile pic :lol:

Is that 15% IPC improvement, or 15% improvement stock clocks Vs. stock clocks ? If that 15% is 5% IPC+10% clocks, SR is mostly meh. If that 15% is pure IPC , its going to be quite an achievement. Power consumption be damned.

we are already hitting 4+ ghz
so physics will limit further clocking and keeping power under 125w
so it seems like ipc is what amd need to improve

Overall if SR sits in and around that SB/IB territory it will be quite impressive.

imo
if they can match quad core nehelam with their dual module sr in every aspect of x86 performance (single and multi threading) at same clock then it will be a very very very impressive improvement
imo their bd/pd are still behind k10 in multi threading (with same cores/threadcount)

 

[sarinaide]

i recently took a look at entry level amd and intel motherboards, turns out that both have similarly specced and priced motherboards. only high end amd motherboards set themselves apart from high end intel motherboards in terms of value. cheap motherboard is just cheap.


are you absolutely sure about steamroller using resonant clock mesh technology? i've been wondering how much efficiency it'll bring to sr cpus and apus. tbh i dunno how much power efficiency will come from switching from 32nm to 28nm. i think that the architecture will have to bring the majority of efficiency improvements. more efficiency -> better mobile asics -> more revenue.

Not all motherboards are cheap in quality as they are in price. Seen sales on Gigabyte A85 UP4's and Asus A85 Pro-V's for just over $100, ASRock Extreme 6's for $90 and even the BioStar's are very good build quality and packed with features, the A75's and A55's are a bit to flimsy but MSI have nice A75 varients. For Socket AM3+ UD7, CHV Z, Extreme 9 all cost under $250 and are all high quality builds dropping sub $200 the UD5, Fatality, GD80 represent good value but admittedly 990FX choices are very stark.

Well the FUD was that SR was intended to be the debut of RCM so why not.

 

[amdfangirl]

your profile pic :lol:

Is vintage AFG.

The older members will remember.

 

[-Fran-]

i realized that here we all are thinking that the consoles will be successful so that multi-core-friendly gaming, 64-bit, hsa, 4k playback all these will accelerate.
what if consoles start low and stay mediocre? how successful has wii u been so far?
i think that if ps4 is successful in usa and america, it'll be enough.

The Wii U was a long long shot from Nintendo, since it's a mimic to what the XBox 360 is today, albeit a tad faster. It's an entirely different beast from the PS4 in a lot of ways.

Also, it seems like most of the developers ran away after the confirmation of the PS4 being X86. For good or bad, I think the shift from Cell (or IBM custom uarch) is a necessary one for PC gaming and if rumors are true for the XBox Durango (aka 720), the better.

I also hope for real 64bit gaming, but that would still be a porting hell, since like we've said, MS is no where for full 64bit support yet. Hopefully they'll push hard for that if the Durango is also 64bits capable. We need to use more memory for more stuff, hahaha.

And in regards to Richland being a sidegrade... Well, if they lower the MSRP and improve a tad, like from Llano to Llano-K, I don't think it's a bad idea TBH. Specially if they also add features. But we'll see about all of that once the APUs arrive.

Cheers!

 

[mayankleoboy1]

Well, if they lower the MSRP and improve a tad, like from Llano to Llano-K, I don't think it's a bad idea TBH. Specially if they also add features.
Cheers!

From some reports, Richland is basically Trinity with added features (HSA software) . :lol:

 

[-Fran-]

Is HSA the only thing "official" at the moment?

I mean, if they have something already they can show at it's launch, it won't be a bad thing either, but still, if it's the only thing to show, it will be a "meh" APU compared to Trinity.

Cheers!

 

[cowboy44mag]

I could be way off, wouldn't be the first time, however I think what AMD is trying for is a new "level ground" in the the gaming world. People like to say that they are getting their computer for multitasking, and mulitmedia type needs but the vast majority of posts are for PC gaming. Most people are going to be very happy with their computer if it can game very well even if it doesn't do other things as well. AMD, in my opinion, realized they couldn't beat Intel in current generation gaming where core power is more important than number of cores and how well those cores hyperthread. There answer was to change the game. If you can't win the game you have to change the rules.

AMD processors will be used in the next gen PS4 and Xbox console systems, which means that vast majority of games are going to have to be optimized to run on AMD architecture. More than likely the PS4 and Xbox will use a custom Bulldozer or Piledriver style APU which means that Steamroller should be much better than the console processors. Taking into account that the PS4 and next gen Xbox won't release until late 2013 Steamroller releasing late 2013 makes perfect sense. By the time the next gen consoles hit the market the games made for them will run awesome on the new Steamroller platform, especially if they are optimized to run on multiple cores and utilize HT. The new games produced for such consoles may run much better on the Steamroller architecture than on Intel's architecture that relays much more on single core horsepower rather than multicore HT.

Now I'm not saying that Intel chips won't be able to play the next gen games, and play them well, however I think AMD is going for the "that's all I need" category. If the new Steamroller processors can play the games as well as or even edging a little better than Intel (because the software is going to be programmed and optimized for AMD architecture) than a lot of people are going to be happy with a cheaper AMD setup that can still play video games with the very best (Intel). Had the next gen consoles used Intel processors I would be saying AMD is done its only a matter of time till they go belly up, however I think this deal with Sony and Microsoft is going to be what saves AMD.

What I would like to know is does anyone know if the new Steamroller processor is going to use the AM3+ motherboards? If if is I am going to upgrade my motherboard and use my Phenom II 965 BE until Steamroller is available and just pop in the new processor. If not I'm going to wait and see if its better to go new motherboard and processor AMD (Steamroller) or if I should go Intel motherboard and processor. If Steamroller will use AM3+ boards I'm just upgrading now and having faith Steamroller will be great.

 

[noob2222]

if they can match quad core nehelam with their dual module sr in every aspect of x86 performance (single and multi threading) at same clock then it will be a very very very impressive improvement
imo their bd/pd are still behind k10 in multi threading (with same cores/threadcount)

this will never happen due to programs using ICC (lame MP3 is ICC unless you recompile from the source code)

It doesn't matter how much faster AMD is than Intel, using 386 code vs SSE4, AVX, FMA, ect, for Intel cpus can't even compare. Even the updated ICC only allows sse3 and lower.

Point is that its impossible for AMD to win every aspect, it never has and never will happen, even the P4 was faster at lame MP3 encoding than anything AMD had at the time while being slower at everything else. people bragged about p4's encoding speed.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-64-fx,1067-9.html

 

[de5_Roy]

^^ how about itunes, is that compiled with icc as well? you could re-compile lame with some other compiler and re-bench, too.
sidenote: i hated those pentium d's.

 

[sarinaide]

From some reports, Richland is basically Trinity with added features (HSA software) . :lol:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1360398/wccftech-amd-apu-performance-numbers-revealed-details-and-launch-schedule-for-richland-and-kabini-apus-leaked

Since 3DMark 11 is the only CPU/GPU bench there that is pure synthetic.

1667 vs 1489 is around 11% difference, basically looking at 5% on the CPU side and 15% iGPU increase but added is tweaking to the L2 Cache and buffed up IMC which aids across the board performance.

If you already own a A10 5800k you will be hard pressed to need to upgrade. If you don't own a Trinity and you are a new buyer you will take a 6800k over a 5800k unless you are retarded.

 

[Cazalan]

What I would like to know is does anyone know if the new Steamroller processor is going to use the AM3+ motherboards? If if is I am going to upgrade my motherboard and use my Phenom II 965 BE until Steamroller is available and just pop in the new processor. If not I'm going to wait and see if its better to go new motherboard and processor AMD (Steamroller) or if I should go Intel motherboard and processor. If Steamroller will use AM3+ boards I'm just upgrading now and having faith Steamroller will be great.

Unknown yet. AMD had said they would stick with AM3+ through the end of 2013, but then Steamroller got delayed to 2014. I think they would stay with AM3+ if at all possible, but who knows what changes they had to make switching from Global Foundries to TSMC.

Kaveri (also steamroller cores) is rumored to have a new socket FM3, but may be backwards compatible with FM2 as well. FM3 may be just for native PCIe 3.0 support which isn't that big a deal.

 

[Cazalan]

1667 vs 1489 is around 11% difference, basically looking at 5% on the CPU side and 15% iGPU increase but added is tweaking to the L2 Cache and buffed up IMC which aids across the board performance.

You can gain more than 15% iGPU with Trinity just by using faster memory, which is both good and bad for AMD.

1) You get more performance but the money to get that performance goes to the memory makers not AMD.

2) APUs are severely memory constrained and if Kaveri is also just dual channel DDR3 (FM2) then it will be limited by the socket.

3) If AMD made a triple or quad channel DDR3 socket they could really push iGPU limits like they are with PS4.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

And just to add, DDR3 and GDDR5 are vastly dissimilar. Only the names sound similar. The architecture and physical layouts are completely different. So i dont think its easy or even feasible to put GDDR3/GDDR5 on processors without a massive rehaul.

 

[mayankleoboy1]

You can gain more than 15% iGPU with Trinity just by using faster memory, which is both good and bad for AMD.

1) You get more performance but the money to get that performance goes to the memory makers not AMD.

2) APUs are severely memory constrained and if Kaveri is also just dual channel DDR3 (FM2) then it will be limited by the socket.

3) If AMD made a triple or quad channel DDR3 socket they could really push iGPU limits like they are with PS4.

I woud say that anything that gives better performance will help AMD, by not making them look sucky in reviews. So common people will be motivated to buy an APU. APU's are AMD's major product line today. If they dont do everything they possibly can to make them better, AMD is doomed.

 

[de5_Roy]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1360398/wccftech-amd-apu-performance-numbers-revealed-details-and-launch-schedule-for-richland-and-kabini-apus-leaked

Since 3DMark 11 is the only CPU/GPU bench there that is pure synthetic.

1667 vs 1489 is around 11% difference, basically looking at 5% on the CPU side and 15% iGPU increase but added is tweaking to the L2 Cache and buffed up IMC which aids across the board performance.
....

i wish they'd publish score details. the end numbers seem vague. the core i7 should have higher cpu scores and may be higher physics scores while the apus should have higher graphics scores.

Unknown yet. AMD had said they would stick with AM3+ through the end of 2013, but then Steamroller got delayed to 2014. I think they would stay with AM3+ if at all possible, but who knows what changes they had to make switching from Global Foundries to TSMC.

Kaveri (also steamroller cores) is rumored to have a new socket FM3, but may be backwards compatible with FM2 as well. FM3 may be just for native PCIe 3.0 support which isn't that big a deal.

that's what amd said. iirc they never specified if steamroller cpus (and kaveri) would fit amn3+ socket. i think they will but i've seen no confirmation on that.
afaik, steamroller is still being made by glofo.

You can gain more than 15% iGPU with Trinity just by using faster memory, which is both good and bad for AMD.

1) You get more performance but the money to get that performance goes to the memory makers not AMD.

2) APUs are severely memory constrained and if Kaveri is also just dual channel DDR3 (FM2) then it will be limited by the socket.

3) If AMD made a triple or quad channel DDR3 socket they could really push iGPU limits like they are with PS4.

3) current trinity gets around 14 GB/s typically, with dual channel controller. quad ch. would get them 28 gb/s bringing speed up to gddr3 bandwidth. with high overclocking it might go up to 40 GB/s but that would still be much lower than gddr5's 68~ GB/s, but very good for entry level usage. and it'd require socket change (possibly), leaving current fm2 owners locket out.

edit: speculations based on rumors and leaks. gotta add the disclaimer.

 

[amdfangirl]

So we can expect the PS4 to support 64bit only gaming... (4GB assessable max with 32bit) unless they use some fancy addressing.

 

[sarinaide]

Heard AMD have been experimenting with PCB style designs going forward with GDDR5 VRAM integrated onto the PCB. The CPU tested is believed to be a low powered solution. The CPU component is still linked direct to DIMM's and a controller will interconnect the CPU/IGPU together using addressed Memory on the PCB itself. The area used up does not exceed the same surface area on current itx-atx setups. Could be interesting.

 

[sarinaide]

i wish they'd publish score details. the end numbers seem vague. the core i7 should have higher cpu scores and may be higher physics scores while the apus should have higher graphics scores.

3) current trinity gets around 14 GB/s typically, with dual channel controller. quad ch. would get them 28 gb/s bringing speed up to gddr3 bandwidth. with high overclocking it might go up to 40 GB/s but that would still be much lower than gddr5's 68~ GB/s, but very good for entry level usage. and it'd require socket change (possibly), leaving current fm2 owners locket out.

edit: speculations based on rumors and leaks. gotta add the disclaimer.

1) It is not about what scores what, the list gives the 5800k's score and the 6800k's overall score, there is a 11% difference between the two at the same cost, that on what essentially is a rebuff is impressive at the exact same cost. Bear in mind that Haswell is only 10% faster than Sandybridge thats substantial improvement and not a generation change either.

2) Screenshots

HD7660D

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/asus-f2a85-v-pro-amd-a10-5800k-w-hd7660d/

HD7750

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_IceQ_X/31.html


Texture bit rate is double to the HD7750, and the GB/s is 3x higher. Increasing to Quad Channel on DDR3 will probably see the HD7660D's badwidth improve to 60+ GB/s which is pretty darn strong for a iGPU. DDR4 will probably see the AMD A-Series unleash a lot of potential limited by DDR3 bandwidth. Though I do agree with Calazan, future FM sockets need to support Quad Channel.

 

[de5_Roy]

1) It is not about what scores what, the list gives the 5800k's score and the 6800k's overall score, there is a 11% difference between the two at the same cost, that on what essentially is a rebuff is impressive at the exact same cost. Bear in mind that Haswell is only 10% faster than Sandybridge thats substantial improvement and not a generation change either.

2) Screenshots

HD7660D

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/asus-f2a85-v-pro-amd-a10-5800k-w-hd7660d/

HD7750

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_IceQ_X/31.html


Texture bit rate is double to the HD7750, and the GB/s is 3x higher. Increasing to Quad Channel on DDR3 will probably see the HD7660D's badwidth improve to 60+ GB/s which is pretty darn strong for a iGPU. DDR4 will probably see the AMD A-Series unleash a lot of potential limited by DDR3 bandwidth. Though I do agree with Calazan, future FM sockets need to support Quad Channel.

according to the gpu-z screeny, the igpu's theoretical/available bandwidth is 34.1 GB/s. that is the available bandwidth. in sandra, the imc supplies much less than that, which is why higher speed ram becomes necessity.
7660d's available bw
http://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/gpuzoc.png
according to sandra, extracted bw
http://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sandra-memory8.png
i assume that this is the reason why overclocking the igpu's core and memory clock doesn't improve gaming performance significantly, but using higher speed ram does improve. using quad channel memory and imc would allow trinity's imc to come close to matching 7660d's available bw(i hope that makes sense). bottom line - the igpu has plenty of bw avilable, but the imc can't even saturate it. i haven't found a bench that tested igpu's memory clock oc and system ram oc seperately.
amd's opteron cpus and intel's high end core i7s have quad channel and they cost quite a bit. imo if quad channel imc does come to apus, it could be in server apus or something similar.

 

[-Fran-]

I once heard about QDR (and you could argue about DDR2 and DDR3 being quad and sixth data rates a-like), but don't remember where... It's better than having Quad channel DDR and it costs less to produce AFAIK. Maybe it was a RAMBUS thing and no one uses it because RAMBUS.

My point is, if AMD went Quad Channel route, it would be a counter to "cheap platform" label, since you'd need 4 sticks of RAM to make a decent build. I know you can find those easily, but still. Also, 8 slots? That would really kill ITX and microATX MoBos, hahaha. I know you can still just put 4 and be done with it, but it's not the idea. I think it's better to wait for DDR4, since even though it will be new tech, it's something to move tech forward.

All in all, AMD is going slow, but it's not making any mistakes with the APUs so far, where FM1 to FM2, could be the only arguable "bad thing" they did IMO.

Cheers!

 

[sarinaide]

I once heard about QDR (and you could argue about DDR2 and DDR3 being quad and sixth data rates a-like), but don't remember where... It's better than having Quad channel DDR and it costs less to produce AFAIK. Maybe it was a RAMBUS thing and no one uses it because RAMBUS.

My point is, if AMD went Quad Channel route, it would be a counter to "cheap platform" label, since you'd need 4 sticks of RAM to make a decent build. I know you can find those easily, but still. Also, 8 slots? That would really kill ITX and microATX MoBos, hahaha. I know you can still just put 4 and be done with it, but it's not the idea. I think it's better to wait for DDR4, since even though it will be new tech, it's something to move tech forward.

All in all, AMD is going slow, but it's not making any mistakes with the APUs so far, where FM1 to FM2, could be the only arguable "bad thing" they did IMO.

Cheers!

1) You get 4 DIMM's on Socket 2011 as well so you don't need 8 DIMM's unless on the higher end boards.

2) You can run Dual Channel on Socket 2011 and Socket 1366 so you don't have to buy 4x XXGB sets.

3) AMD have already stated that APU's cost is purely coincidental and that it will not always remain a low end platform. Speaking with liaisons this platform is intended to grow into the flagship mainstream platform. The intention 3 years down was to have the first APU capable of high level computing along with mainstream graphics on core, all while remaining pretty cost efficient and flexible. this is not impossible to fathom.