First Look: AMD’s Carrizo APU Notebook Design

[cleeve]

AMD is debuting its high-performance Carrizo and Carrizo-L system-on-a-chip design at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), and we’re the first to offer pictures of the prototype:


First Look: AMD’s Carrizo APU Notebook Design : Read more

 

[shogunofharlom]

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

 

[Fearnot]

Better be a FM2+ Carrizo also or AMD has completely abandoned the desktop till 2016. Also don't bother bringing up the rebadged 2012 8350's that they are still trying to sell like new.

 

[AJSB]

I don't give a <<blank>> about Notebooks, i had two and swear to never again, i only use/build mini-ITX for several years.

Better AMD have that Carrizo thing in a dropin FM2+ socket or else i will be VERY disapointed.

Still using Trinity APUs in FM2+ MoBos and WON'T upgrade untill Carrizo arrives to Desktop.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

I certainly am rooting for AMD to get their *#&@ together and get this power usage under control. In situations where power is not an issue, I certainly like AMD's performance/$ ratio as I can easily put together a competent desktop or basic server for a very reasonable price. When it comes down to performance/watt (laptops and htpc) however, I have to go Intel.

J1900 HTPC (10w)
i5 Sandy bridge laptop (zenbook)
AMD Opteron rack server (1u webserver)
Xeon X3450 rack server (big hotswap VM server and couldn't beat the price)
AMD Phenom II x 2 (freenas media server)
AMD A10-5700 desktop (working computer)

 

[anxiousinfusion]

I don't give a <<blank>> about Notebooks, i had two and swear to never again, i only use/build mini-ITX for several years.

Better AMD have that Carrizo thing in a dropin FM2+ socket or else i will be VERY disapointed.

Still using Trinity APUs in FM2+ MoBos and WON'T upgrade untill Carrizo arrives to Desktop.

Agreed. It's saddening to see AMD basically tell desktop users to go die in a hole. Laptops are the epitome of compromise.

 

[thd101kf]

At least for consumers who spend most on their time on entertainment this amd apu will be better than intel who focus too much on pure cpu workloads despite the improvement they have made in igp.

 

[Vlad Razvan]

As a longtime AMD user, I'm telling you... don't get your hopes up. AMD cant make decent cpu's or drivers, but their PR department is top notch. Expect the usual %10 performance increase with a %5 battery life gain. They will use the designs marginally increased efficiency to increase clock speeds, but not so much to negate a net a battery-life gain.

I don't agree with you on the drivers part. While it used to be true in the past, I consider current AMD drivers to be on par with nVidia's. I currently own an Asus ROG 751JY with an nvidia card, and I have to say - nvida drivers are dissapointing. Issues like BSODs and overheating, or setting the GPU to 100% at idle and on battery power are quite common in today's nvidia drivers. Also, nvidia control pannel doesn't have as many features as Catalyst control center. (I used to have a 7970m in my Precision M6700 before I sold it and got my current machine). I can't belive I'm saying this, but I miss catalyst control center... It even enabled OC by default - I can't seem to OC the 980m regardless of what I try...

 

[TechyInAZ]

Interesting, any chance well be seeing this type of APU in the desktop market?

 

[zodiacfml]

this is going to be the same story all over again versus the Intel's Broadwell, auperior graphics with weaker CPU with higher consumption.

 

[Dan Ritchie]

Kaveri was starting to get pretty good. Performance of C++ Amp code was impressive. Looking forward to seeing what HSA adds.

 

[qlum]

I think amd can push this one quite far. Consudering the chips they made for the ps4 they could very well be making gaming igps that pretty much make dedicated graphics cards for notebooks obsolete and if they push it even further do the same for the lower end oc the desktop.

 

[ta152h]

AMD has made it very clear they will not be using this for the desktop, nor should they. Sure, people will whine, mainly because they like to, but this would be a worthless product if they didn't limit the scope of it.

It's not going to perform as well as a Piledriver core, which will remain their high-end desktop part. They couldn't do it, and didn't try. They are still stuck on 28nm, with a bad CPU design, so they just want to focus on a small portion of the market and get it right. So, they no doubt sacrificed things that are not needed on the intended platform, like a lot of PCI-E lanes, and high clock speeds, to maximize performance per watt in a limited scenario. It was the correct move.

The Puma based Carrizo-L will also be using that platform, which should give you a clear indication isn't not going to be a higher-end desktop platform.

AMDroids have to realize, AMD can not make a competitive part on the desktop. Not in 2015. They aren't going to go out of business trying to cater to people wanting to kill the evil Zargons, who also want an AMD CPU. They can't do it, so aren't trying. They feel they can do well in the segment they are targeting this processor at.

Just get an Intel CPU. Simple. That market is amply covered by Intel, so why complain about it? There are excellent high-end CPUs out there, and AMD can't hope to match them. So, buy Intel, be happy. Or wait until 2016. AMD will be releasing Zen that year, and it may be what you are looking for. That's when they get another crack at it, and you can be pretty sure they'll have some high-end chips that bury their current FX offerings. Whether they are as good as Intel's, that's another story, but it's almost a certainty they'll be far more competitive than their current stuff.

So, they did what they could with what they have to work with now, and it was a good choice. 2016, they'll have new choices, and if you just won't buy Intel, you'll no doubt find some of those products meet your needs much better than those out today. Just give them time. Again. And let's hope we're not disappointed. Again.

 

[AJSB]

qlum,
Aaaahhh, but will they indeed do a Carrizo for Desktop ?
I really hope so but i bet that won't be in 1st half of 2015, at best by end of 2015 and thats a shame because i want it NOW.

 

[soldier44]

So when are laptop makers going to go bezeless design. Same ole crap every year. Edge to edge screen would be impressive.

 

[ingtar33]

when the first a10 "trinity" mobile chips came out they were a slap in the face to intel, they were more efficient then the intel i7 models available at the time, and had an igpu that blew the doors off anything intel could dream of putting on a laptop. the only way intel could compete in mobile was with a discrete gpu, and that chewed up more power.

but even with those advantages the original a10-4600m parts never sold. they were put in cheap laptops and marginalized in the market. then ivy bridge came out in mobile form and the a10 was soundly bested on every level except for the igpu, and now with mobile haswell and broadwell the mobile apu segment is so far behind i couldn't recommend anyone buy one for any reason.

you could see the same story repeat with Beema, which destroyed any intel atom cpu out there with the same power consumption. You couldn't find beema in any device. 3 months later intel released a chip that buried beema on every level except for price, which intel rectified by giving away a few million chips for free.

Even if in the highly unlikely scenario Carrizo can compete with mobile broadwell i don't expect to see them show up in any segment of the market, as intel will just give away a few million more more chips, spend a few billion on marketing and bury that offering as well.

AMD is not Intel's competition anymore, intel is gunning for ARM and the mobile chip biz.

 

[fanboy34]

I am in a hurry to see carrizo on a desktop.
Congratulation for tomshardware to be invited to get a look on this prototype: I'm french, and I didn't see any french website with a news off Carrizo in the CES.

This says, I think AMD made a big work since phenom 1.0: a 860k (cpu part of a 7850k) is equal on performence to an i5 sandy at 3.00ghz almost as efficient.
If the Carrizo is 20% more powerfull, then it could be a very interristing product.
I heard "here and there" that 20% will not be impossible (due to the improve of the mémory cache)

 

[AJSB]

ta152h,
If you or AMD think that AMD will be successful in mobile market...it will NOT.
Intel will use same unfair and actually ILLEGAL tactics that used against a10-4600m and Beema and will bury AMD in mobile market once and for all...wait and see.

I don't actually need an APU with a stronger CPU part than a Kaveri quad core....Carrizo will use 4 cores at slower frequency that Kaveri but IPC gains will compensate if not at 100%, almost to 100% and that would be fine with me.
What i want is a much stronger iGPU thanks to color compression,etc. that Carrizo brings to the table so i can play games with a iGPU with performance level i want and even lower power drains.

Buy Intel ?!?
LOL, their only good "APU" alone costs more than a A10-7800 or A10-7850k plus 8GB 2133 RAM plus MoBo plus case plus PSU plus SSD (or big HDD) plus ODD !

Intel is NOT an option for iGPU gaming.

 

[AnUnusedUsername]

-snip-
Intel is NOT an option for iGPU gaming.

Unfortunately, neither is AMD, because nobody makes a nice laptop using an AMD iGPU. They make low tier barebones systems designed exclusively to be cheap. If someone were to make a high quality laptop using an AMD iGPU I'd love to buy one.

 

[fanboy34]

-snip-
Intel is NOT an option for iGPU gaming.

Unfortunately, neither is AMD, because nobody makes a nice laptop using an AMD iGPU. They make low tier barebones systems designed exclusively to be cheap. If someone were to make a high quality laptop using an AMD iGPU I'd love to buy one.

The problem is assemblers don't want/like, or couldn't ( 'cose association/exclisivity with Intel) work a lot with AMD, this for desktop and laptop products. We don't have a large choice if we want to buy an AMD laptop.
Intel does everything he want because court never ask him to pay a just fine.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/12/5803442/intel-nearly-1-and-a-half-billion-fine-upheld-anticompetitive-practices

 

[Cryio]

You could see the same story repeat with Beema, which destroyed any intel atom cpu out there with the same power consumption. You couldn't find beema in any device. 3 months later intel released a chip that buried beema on every level except for price, which intel rectified by giving away a few million chips for free.

Well Beema/Carizzo-L still look like more than enough to take on Intel Atom and still walk away victorious.

 

[sonofliberty08]

the laptop looks like a thinkpad, AMD should working closely with Lenovo or ASUS to bring this laptop appear widely on the market, or we still won't get in on the market no where. And maybe carrizo will come to AM1 platform.

 

[palladin9479]

-snip-
Intel is NOT an option for iGPU gaming.

Unfortunately, neither is AMD, because nobody makes a nice laptop using an AMD iGPU. They make low tier barebones systems designed exclusively to be cheap. If someone were to make a high quality laptop using an AMD iGPU I'd love to buy one.

There are two companies that I know of, HP and Acer. HP has several models but they all come with really weird memory configurations that cramp their performance (12GB 2 DIMM, 8GB 1 DIMM, ect..). Acer doesn't actively market their APU equipped laptop and you have to use some googlefu to bring them up. They seem to have a decent memory configuration but only use the lower model APU's on what appears to be a school / media orientated notebook.

The reason you never see "Gaming" notebooks with an APU or other high end monikers is that manufacturers tend to put a premium pricetag on that brand and over-equip those models. People who go shoping for a "gaming" laptop are already planning to spend over $1000 USD which is beyond the point where an APU makes economic sense, they will be sold an i7 with a 650M and charged premium. APU's and other economy value orientated components tend to be put in the $500~700 USD or less range where the OEM's are selling to college kids who typically aren't expecting to "play games". That being said, you can actually pick up a decent HP ENVY model and just fix the memory situation when you receive it (typically means replacing one DIMM). Don't expect more then DDR3-1600 though.

 

[vertexx]

oooh, aaah.... that's a swanky looking laptop with a slapped-on AMD logo and a dark screen. Did they actually let you turn it on?

So far, the only thing from AMD at CES this year is (1) all these monitor partners have signed up for FreeSync and (2) a laptop "prototype" that probably doesn't even function trying to hype up how great Carrizo is going to be. They've got no new GPU, no CPU, no real wins to talk about with HSA and Mantle that was all the hype last year. Do they not have anything new to announce with their custom application-specific CPU business that is supposed to be a major focus?

Really, this is pathetic.

 

[silverblue]

AMD has made it very clear they will not be using this for the desktop, nor should they. Sure, people will whine, mainly because they like to, but this would be a worthless product if they didn't limit the scope of it.

It's not going to perform as well as a Piledriver core, which will remain their high-end desktop part. They couldn't do it, and didn't try. They are still stuck on 28nm, with a bad CPU design, so they just want to focus on a small portion of the market and get it right. So, they no doubt sacrificed things that are not needed on the intended platform, like a lot of PCI-E lanes, and high clock speeds, to maximize performance per watt in a limited scenario. It was the correct move.

The Puma based Carrizo-L will also be using that platform, which should give you a clear indication isn't not going to be a higher-end desktop platform.

AMDroids have to realize, AMD can not make a competitive part on the desktop. Not in 2015. They aren't going to go out of business trying to cater to people wanting to kill the evil Zargons, who also want an AMD CPU. They can't do it, so aren't trying. They feel they can do well in the segment they are targeting this processor at.

Well, they seem to believe that Carrizo will perform up to 30% better than Kaveri at 15W, but there's no indication of how it fares at, say, 25W or 35W. The revised process may not lend itself as well to high clock speeds which could mean that a desktop part would be less attractive. Kaveri was 10-20% faster at the same level of power consumption than Trinity at low wattage, so given an Excavator equivalent of the FX-7500 (2.1GHz/3.3GHz turbo/19W), I don't think it'd be too far a stretch to expect a Carrizo part to perform close to or at the same level of an FX-7600P (2.7GHz/3.6GHz/35W) in terms of CPU power.