AMD Debuts Its First HSA-Compliant Chips With Carrizo And Carizzo-L

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I'm hoping this really plays out well for AMD so they can have a strong market share again and make it into mobile areas. Really hoping that Imagination picks up on it too so that they can start getting market share in the mobile and laptop world. I don't think ARM will be so fast to pick up on it, since they could only guarantee its full functioning when their Mali GPU tech is used and that just isn't always done.
 
While its nice as the beginning. The problem with this is software that won't have support for it outside of your own ofcourse. It will take along time unless AMD will start cooperating heavily with software companies and start with something big like 3D creating software, encoding, data bases.
 
I'm a bit puzzled as to why this is labelled an SOC instead of an APU. Have they integrated all NB+SB functions into the APU? Does this entail any IO changes? And what does this mean for socketed platforms? Could we actually see socketed SOC motherboards with no chipset, only controllers and paths linked directly to CPU PCIe lanes? If this was to work, it would be an awesome cost saving measure (I can't imagine the chipset being the cheapest part of a motherboard, after all), but I can imagine this causing all kinds of trouble due to motherboards with different connectivity. Am I wrong in thinking this would require an entirely new type of BIOS? Or have I misunderstood this entirely?

Edit: Reading AnandTech's coverage of this, they are only naming Carrizo-L an SoC, not Carrizo, which would make it more of a direct successor to Kaveri. This makes more sense to me at least.
 
I'm really excited by the possibilities of HSA, including the improvements it makes to memory bandwidth use for the integrate GPU, which should be both good for running an APU only system, but also for using an APU like a CPU with co-processor for physics, pre-rendering etc., as that could kick AMD APUs ahead of Intel's chips even when paired with a discrete GPU for the main rendering work.
 
I think we all finally realize why AMD made up the term APU. HSA has probably been their plan since the beginning of project 'Fusion'. It's only now becoming quite clear what separates an APU between just a CPU with integrated graphics on the same die.
 
I feel like this chip itself is not going to make the difference but a hsa over time can have a lot of potential.
 
I can't wait to start learning how to code for HSA. Hopefully this is where the market is going to lean towards. I think it's a great concept.
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Having tried to build the HSAIL-Simulator and being met with a vast quantity of errors (and a lot of lost time...), and also trying to build the okra-interface, with the same results, I really hope that development tools become... simpler. Or more reliable, at least.

But yeah, I'm pretty excited about seeing what we can make these APUs do. Here's to hoping that Carrizo will be competitively priced.
 


The problem is how many programs will support this in the short term? How many people aside us geeks would be aware and factor that into their buying decision?

How difficult would it be to optimize for? Most people making programs want compatibility across a broad number of devices.

I personally don't even game on a tablet so battery life, screen quality and available software are my buying decisions.
 


Ah that was a good reread. Thanks! 😀

Every now and then I wonder why Nvidia has moved so far into CPUs(SoC more specifically), but Nvidia still sucks at making any kind of GPU.

 
For the safety of the safety of your family, your school work, and the work of your professors no CPU or APU in the public domain should have a TrustZone core or processor. It bypasses all the logging and security of an Operating System. Anyone with the software needed can access and destroy any record or plant any record on your computer. I am more concerned with losing my family history and life work.

ARM TrustZone means Weaponized Blind Trust violating your Private Zone.
 


The problem is how many programs will support this in the short term? How many people aside us geeks would be aware and factor that into their buying decision?

How difficult would it be to optimize for? Most people making programs want compatibility across a broad number of devices.

I personally don't even game on a tablet so battery life, screen quality and available software are my buying decisions.
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Well, Sumatra looks pretty promising - quite a few examples work with literally no changes to the code itself, and HSAIL is designed to be portable via a finalizer that converts it into the machine ISA. So in theory, it's as easy to code in as Java is now, and as portable as Java is... as soon as Java 9 comes. I'm not entirely sure on the primary differences between HSA 0.95 and 1.0, though - and for some bizarre reason people are more interested in Health Savings Accounts than Heterogeneous System Architecture, so googling this stuff is rather a pain.

Unfortunately, from what little I've seen in the mobile market, people just don't like pairing AMD parts with mid-high end parts, let alone using AMD stuff at all... it's been what, 6 months since Kaveri laptops were announced, and I have yet to see an fx-7600p ANYWHERE?
 
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