AMD Shipping 7th Generation 'Bristol Ridge' APUs Ahead Of Schedule

[kewlguy239]

AMD revealed that it is shipping its 7th generation AMD A-Series processors (codenamed “Bristol Ridge") to OEM customers earlier than anticipated, with HP leading the charge by featuring the new APUs in its updated Envy x360 2-in-1 laptop.

AMD Shipping 7th Generation 'Bristol Ridge' APUs Ahead Of Schedule : Read more

 

[artk2219]

If the specs for the 9800P are correct, it would definitely give the I3 and I5 U's a good run for their money. At least it would if any of the OEM's wanted to actually build something around it that isn't a 15 to 17" laptop with a crappy screen thats an ugly brick.

 

[harrkev]

I am certain that the HP offering will only offer single-channel memory and a mechanical hard drive.

 

[IceMyth]

I know for sure: 1
- HP will sucks so bad as I had an A10 AMD HP laptop and after 1.5years the fan needed a replacement.
2- My next laptop will be MSI with AMD CPU but for sure not A series as I don't trust them nor their performance or the cooling system for them (laptop)
But for sure next laptop will have the latest available MSI AMD CPU.

 

[lordmogul]

I read about the Athlon X4 845 which is based on Carrizo and has around 20% performance improvement over Piledriver.
Those claimed "50% improvement over Kaveri" are not exaggerated.

 

[blazorthon]

Yes, the few benchmarks I've seen on the Athlon X4 845 were impressive enough to imply that what's coming is a huge leap ahead of AMD's other stuff that's been sitting around for several years. I just wish we saw some of the tech sites actually reviewing it, I have yet to see a single review from a major site to back up claims in the forums.

 

[Wisecracker]

I read about the Athlon X4 845 which is based on Carrizo and has around 20% performance improvement over Piledriver.
Those claimed "50% improvement over Kaveri" are not exaggerated.

And, that's with the 'gimped' 2x1MB L2 on the X4 845.

Hopefully, the desktop 'Big Cat Bristol Ridge' APUs will carry 2x2MB L2, and HP will put some decent mobile 'builds' at a right price in the new 2-in-1s.

 

[w0by]

I've owned two Spectre's now, they're really nice notebook computers, the best in the business in my opinion.

 

[w0by]

Actually Spectre's have always used SSD, at least the past 3 generations.

I am certain that the HP offering will only offer single-channel memory and a mechanical hard drive.

 

[logainofhades]

What I am interested in is how well the IGP performs, using DDR4. IIRC, Bristol Ridge and Zen are both to be DDR4 platforms.

 

[lip008]

I am certain that the HP offering will only offer single-channel memory and a mechanical hard drive.

Yep. I agree with that. I almost bought a HP A10 laptop from Best Buy when it was on sale until I found a review that stated how poor the GPU performance was with the single-channel memory.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Hopeful that maybe this acceleration means an acceleration of the release of Zen..... a man can dream can't he?

 

[logainofhades]

[quotemsg=17773890,0,1852902]Hopeful that maybe this acceleration means an acceleration of the release of Zen..... a man can dream can't he?[/quotemsg]

Bristol Ridge is the desktop variant of Excavator, iirc, so it is just another generational upgrade of the original Bulldozer arch. Zen is a totally new arch.

 

[alextheblue]

What I am interested in is how well the IGP performs, using DDR4. IIRC, Bristol Ridge and Zen are both to be DDR4 platforms.

As others have said, a lot of that is going to depend on whether or not this is gimped with single channel support only. Some of the FP4 designs are incapable of dual channel, regardless of number of memory slots. Doesn't matter what APU you drop in, either. So just to hammer the point home... it's entirely going to depend on what choices they made with their motherboard design.

If they went with a cheaper shared platform board designed mostly for Puma+ chips, it's going to be single channel only. Since this is not a bottom-barrel model, I would hope this is not the case - but HP has made such decisions before for cost reasons. If you can use the same cheaper board for Puma+ based chips as well as Excavator, why not? Saves them money and most consumers won't know any different.

[quotemsg=17773890,0,1852902]Hopeful that maybe this acceleration means an acceleration of the release of Zen..... a man can dream can't he?[/quotemsg]

Bristol Ridge is the desktop variant of Excavator, iirc, so it is just another generational upgrade of the original Bulldozer arch. Zen is a totally new arch.

 

[Rogue Leader]

[quotemsg=17774043,0,59887][quotemsg=17773890,0,1852902]Hopeful that maybe this acceleration means an acceleration of the release of Zen..... a man can dream can't he?[/quotemsg]

Bristol Ridge is the desktop variant of Excavator, iirc, so it is just another generational upgrade of the original Bulldozer arch. Zen is a totally new arch. [/quotemsg]

I know... in my imaginary world all the guys who worked on it, are like OK, lets move on and make the next one faster.

 

[logainofhades]

I hope they make it faster. I want to see, at minimum, haswell levels of performance. Priced right, AMD would get quite the revenue boost, that it really needs.

 

[ammaross]

Some of the FP4 designs are incapable of dual channel, regardless of number of memory slots. Doesn't matter what APU you drop in, either. So just to hammer the point home... it's entirely going to depend on what choices they made with their motherboard design.

If they went with a cheaper shared platform board designed mostly for Puma+ chips, it's going to be single channel only. Since this is not a bottom-barrel model, I would hope this is not the case - but HP has made such decisions before for cost reasons. If you can use the same cheaper board for Puma+ based chips as well as Excavator, why not? Saves them money and most consumers won't know any different.

And now we're seeing the problem with retaining socket backwards-compatibility. Great for wanting new CPUs without buying a new mobo, but the corporate penny-pinchers can take advantage of that too.

 

[logainofhades]

On desktop, Bristol Ridge will be a new AM4 socket, that it will share with Zen. Hopefully AMD has done the same, and made a new socket on the mobile side of things.

 

[alextheblue]

And now we're seeing the problem with retaining socket backwards-compatibility. Great for wanting new CPUs without buying a new mobo, but the corporate penny-pinchers can take advantage of that too.

The culprit is not backwards compatibility. Some boards support dual or single channel operation, some single channel only. In both cases they can run the same processors. I am not sure how much of this is a cost saving measure or if there's other factors in play, such as creating an artificial performance barrier between their cheaper devices and higher-end models.

In terms of cost savings I am sure in many cases they are able to get by with a cheaper design that forgoes dual channel support, and also by selling the vast majority of FP4 systems with the same motherboard they better benefit from economies of scale and a more streamlined production process. Basically they can use the same board in the same chassis and slap in any processor the OEM has designed it to handle from cheap cat core APUs on up to whatever they are comfortable with. Rather than having two distinct mainboard designs for the same chassis, like they had to do before (one for Cat core APUs, one for BD-based APU designs).

On desktop, Bristol Ridge will be a new AM4 socket, that it will share with Zen. Hopefully AMD has done the same, and made a new socket on the mobile side of things.

Well as I mentioned above the OEMs like to both reduce overall costs, but they also like it when cheaper (lower-profit) systems can't be upgraded to perform like premium models even when configured with the same processor.

I am hoping issues like this will fade over time and more laptops will support dual-channel out of the box as Zen APUs start to ship. I would bet that most AM4 desktop systems will be spared such issues in the first place.

 

[falchard]

AMD has been the leader in non-discrete graphics computers since 2008. So it should not be surprising these will once again be the better chip for non-discrete graphics computers. To me its not gonna change the current outlook for AMD.
On the 835 it makes sense that with less L2 Cache they have better performance in standard applications. This is because nearly all applications are designed around Intel's CPU limitations. After all why would you cripple your application that bogs down 90% of CPUs?
There is a use for the large caches in AMD FX processors, just not for consumers. Things like dynamically allocated containers that has a large amount of indexes. Like CG rendering.

 

[rhx123]

It would be really sad if they arbitrarily block the Core. Intel should have forced anyone implementing TB to have no vendor locks, and mandatory BIOS support.