Report: AMD Kaveri APUs Will Work in Upcoming FM2+ Socket

[N.Broekhuijsen]

AMD's upcoming Kaveri APUs will reportedly be compatible with the upcoming FM2+ socket.

Report: AMD Kaveri APUs Will Work in Upcoming FM2+ Socket : Read more

 

[Larry Bob]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

 

[vmem]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

It's nomenclature, to indicate that it's an update, not redesign, of socket FM2. it's also named thusly because it RETAINS COMPATIBILITY with current FM2 chips. of course, few would buy a new mobo without a new APU to go with it. but still, the backwards compatibility is nice

 

[realibrad]

last time, the + cpus were able to drop into previous mobos, but with out ddr3 support. dont know what support these would be losing, but last time you could buy the new cpu, and use an older mobo.

 

[realibrad]

last time, the + cpus were able to drop into previous mobos, but with out ddr3 support. dont know what support these would be losing, but last time you could buy the new cpu, and use an older mobo.

 

[Alexandros N]

Maybe an FM2 cpu will be compatible with an FM2+ mobo, or the new cpu will compatible with the old mobo. There are some limitations when that happen (lack of some new cpu-igp features) but at least you don't have to buy both new. Happend with am3 to am3+ sockets.

 

[SteelCity1981]

will work? of course it will work t's a brand new socket the article's title acts like it's an existing socket.

 

[slomo4sho]

The Richland APUs are going to have a rather short life cycle...

 

[ingtar33]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

you need to learn AMD naming nomenclature.

xx2 and xx2+ will be identical sockets for the most part. allowing backward compatibility with xx2 chips in an xx2+ motherboard. This also means xx2+ chips will work in xx3 motherboards.

in short incompatibility pops up in whole "number" changes. an AM2 cpu won't work in an AM3 motherboard, however an AM2+ chip will work in an AM3 motherboard.

Generally speaking AMD likes to make it's "generational" sockets standard for the life of a ram cycle. So AM2 featured DDR2 ram compatibility. AM3 featured DDR3 compatibility, and its expected that AM4 will feature DDR4 compatibility.

That's why so many people were upset when AMD had to redesign their FM1 socket within just one chip generation to the incompatible FM2 socket. Instead of lasting for the life of DDR3, AMD was forced because of the flaws in the original APU structure to ditch compatibility completely in order to fix the APU, skipping FM1+ and going straight to FM2.

This is big news precisely because it means AMD isn't going to do the same thing with the whole new Kaveri APU. They'll retain socket comparability in order to support older trinity APUs. This means people can buy Richland and know that they won't be buying a chip with no future going forward.

 

[sykozis]

So, when exactly is Kaveri launching?

 

[chuyayala]

And by "leak" you mean AMD investor relations page roadmap being updated a few days ago?

 

[shikamaru31789]

I want to know just how powerful Kaveri will be. The PS4 and Xbox One both use AMD APU's and both will be releasing around the same time as Kaveri. The PS4's integrated GPU is about 3x more powerful than the best Richland GPU, the 8670D, while the Xbox One's integrated GPU is rumored to be about 2x as powerful. Will Kaveri's A10K model have graphics as powerful as either? A leak awhile back suggested that the best Kaveri integrated GPU would only be about as powerful as the 7750, which is rated at 819 GFLOPS, compared to 648 on the 8670D, 1840 on the PS4, and 1230 (rumored) on the Xbox One. Admittedly the PS4 and Xbox One APU's probably only have such powerful graphics because they're using low power Jaguar CPU's, allowing more of the total power to go to graphics, so I'm not expecting Kaveri to have graphics as powerful as either, but still it'd be nice if they could at least hit 1000 GFLOPS.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

It's nomenclature, to indicate that it's an update, not redesign, of socket FM2. it's also named thusly because it RETAINS COMPATIBILITY with current FM2 chips. of course, few would buy a new mobo without a new APU to go with it. but still, the backwards compatibility is nice

Not always true. AM3+ could support AM3 CPUs but AM3 could not support AM3+ CPUs. It will be seen if FM2 supports Kaveri as a new CPU and GPU means new power layouts and pinouts.

 

[sarinaide]

Socket stability is a good thing and FM2+ while not a socket change is a update and I do think that FM2+ will be the "embedded" GDDR5 versions to unleash the bandwidth which is key to iGPU performance.

 

[mouse24]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

It's nomenclature, to indicate that it's an update, not redesign, of socket FM2. it's also named thusly because it RETAINS COMPATIBILITY with current FM2 chips. of course, few would buy a new mobo without a new APU to go with it. but still, the backwards compatibility is nice

Not always true. AM3+ could support AM3 CPUs but AM3 could not support AM3+ CPUs. It will be seen if FM2 supports Kaveri as a new CPU and GPU means new power layouts and pinouts.

Wasn't some sort of minor update required to get an AM3 board to an AM3+ board? Yet some manufacturers simply didn't do it? I see many 760(and above) socket AM3+ boards on newegg aswell as many that don't.

 

[sarinaide]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

It's nomenclature, to indicate that it's an update, not redesign, of socket FM2. it's also named thusly because it RETAINS COMPATIBILITY with current FM2 chips. of course, few would buy a new mobo without a new APU to go with it. but still, the backwards compatibility is nice

Not always true. AM3+ could support AM3 CPUs but AM3 could not support AM3+ CPUs. It will be seen if FM2 supports Kaveri as a new CPU and GPU means new power layouts and pinouts.

Wasn't some sort of minor update required to get an AM3 board to an AM3+ board? Yet some manufacturers simply didn't do it? I see many 760(and above) socket AM3+ boards on newegg aswell as many that don't.

AM3 to AM3+ is not a socket change but a chipset change, like AM3+ will have a new chipset for SR based parts, the FM2 chipset will have a update for Kaveri but more so for the embeded GDDR5 which Kaveri supports, that said from what is said the Richland/Trinity parts can use FM2+ just not GDDR5 and similarly the Kaveri part can use FM2 but will lose the performance of GDDR5.

 

[Olov Hansson]

Hmm, this is interesting. It was kind of obvious that FM2 wouldn't cut it, as Kaveri will need to push up memory bandwidth to show its full potential. What will FM2+ add?
What is needed isn't more power or anything, just more memory bandwidth. As DDR4 is still a bit too far off in the future and GDDR5 isn't really applicable in a smooth fashion, Kaveri will need a wider bus. Quad channel? 256 bit? For AMD, that's definitely the easiest way ahead and FM2 would bottleneck it.

 

[Olov Hansson]

Also - For the ones wondering about graphics performance in Kaveri and future APUs - There is a huge potential. The only real bottlenecks are power consumption/heat dissipation on one side and memory bandwidth on the other. The Trinity generation of APUs already need 128bit 2133-2400 MHz to handle the graphics, so if it is to become more powerful, the first obstacle is the bus width. And then, about power/heat - In Trinity, the graphics is already very low power. The CPU-portion is what draws power in the APUs of today. GCN is also a newer architecture than the VLIW4 in Trinity/Richland. What i'm trying to say is that there is quite a bit of headroom for the graphics, as long as AMD manages to pull out more memory bandwidth.

 

[sarinaide]

Kaveri benefits from GDDR 5 and considering its not a socket change or SoC there is not enough space for an embed on the die itself so FM2+ will likely have the GDDR5 embeded on the motherboard itself with extra controller in the NB to allocate it exclusively to the iGPU, as for the rest it will be like Z87 is from Z77 thunderbolt, faster SATA, better VRM's, Faster RAM speed support and of course allowes mobo manufacturers to remarket and redesign.

 

[somebodyspecial]

I want to know just how powerful Kaveri will be. The PS4 and Xbox One both use AMD APU's and both will be releasing around the same time as Kaveri. The PS4's integrated GPU is about 3x more powerful than the best Richland GPU, the 8670D, while the Xbox One's integrated GPU is rumored to be about 2x as powerful. Will Kaveri's A10K model have graphics as powerful as either? A leak awhile back suggested that the best Kaveri integrated GPU would only be about as powerful as the 7750, which is rated at 819 GFLOPS, compared to 648 on the 8670D, 1840 on the PS4, and 1230 (rumored) on the Xbox One. Admittedly the PS4 and Xbox One APU's probably only have such powerful graphics because they're using low power Jaguar CPU's, allowing more of the total power to go to graphics, so I'm not expecting Kaveri to have graphics as powerful as either, but still it'd be nice if they could at least hit 1000 GFLOPS.

I'm not sure who will care. These are the lowest end and will remain so. No serious gamer is going to go integrated at any time soon. We will continually push higher, with 4K being the next rung. These will need things turned off to get 1080p smoothly (just like the xbox1/ps4 have already shown lower textures etc to get playable framerates) if they even do that. Iris can barely muster 1366x768 and not in everything...LOL. These are barely above acceptable for casual people. Not the people buying discrete. If you want to game for REAL, for the foreseeable future you'll need a card over $100. No $100-200 cpu will change that. When a 780 has problems running with EVERYTHING maxed out in a few games still (see hardocp 780 review, even titan has a few things turned down to do 1080p for it to be always over 30fps), you can hardly expect decent fps from a apu without the 1-6GB local memory dedicated to it. Also without having that dedicated memory, you're not getting exactly what the gflops says on consoles IMHO.

Kaveri may be (MAY be) acceptable at 1680x1050, but I question even that without messing with details in some or a lot of games. I'm not saying there won't be a FEW games you can find doing 1080p ok (remember, consoles are only shooting for 30fps in order to keep from turning stuff off, though it seems they will have to anyway), but you'll spend all day playing with settings trying to get most to run there and we're almost ready to head higher to 1440p & 2160p. Which of course, makes the whole thing pointless for a few more die shrinks. The discrete market will be left UNTOUCHED by kaveri etc. I don't call it gaming until I see the game AS THE DEV INTENDED with all the candy on full blast. I'm hoping maxwell will allow 1440p on some games (my future 27in/30in) and the rest I'll dump over to my 24in dell at 1920x1200. Currently my Radeon 5850 does the same but rarely on my 24 amped up and usually ends up on my 1680x1050 22in. I like playing in their native res (though the dell 24 is very good outside native and I do it occasionally).

 

[ingtar33]

Kaveri benefits from GDDR 5 and considering its not a socket change or SoC there is not enough space for an embed on the die itself so FM2+ will likely have the GDDR5 embeded on the motherboard itself with extra controller in the NB to allocate it exclusively to the iGPU, as for the rest it will be like Z87 is from Z77 thunderbolt, faster SATA, better VRM's, Faster RAM speed support and of course allowes mobo manufacturers to remarket and redesign.

Can we drop the "Kaveri will have GDDR5 memory" rumor?

1) its unsubstantiated
2) it's contrary to AMD's own roadmap for how they are planning to update their APUs.

AMD is planning, with Kaveri to do what they did with Jaguar, and eliminate the "graphic ram/system ram" wall that currently exists in APUs/iGPUs everywhere. This is a key redesign which allows the cpu/gpu to work on a task simultaneously inside the same ram.

Adding gddr5 ram to the Kaveri motherboard would invalidate this whole structural redesign. It won't happen. A llano/trinity/richland APU would benefit from an inbedded chunk of gddr5 ram... Kaveri would not.

 

[sarinaide]

Kaveri benefits from GDDR 5 and considering its not a socket change or SoC there is not enough space for an embed on the die itself so FM2+ will likely have the GDDR5 embeded on the motherboard itself with extra controller in the NB to allocate it exclusively to the iGPU, as for the rest it will be like Z87 is from Z77 thunderbolt, faster SATA, better VRM's, Faster RAM speed support and of course allowes mobo manufacturers to remarket and redesign.

Can we drop the "Kaveri will have GDDR5 memory" rumor?

1) its unsubstantiated
2) it's contrary to AMD's own roadmap for how they are planning to update their APUs.

AMD is planning, with Kaveri to do what they did with Jaguar, and eliminate the "graphic ram/system ram" wall that currently exists in APUs/iGPUs everywhere. This is a key redesign which allows the cpu/gpu to work on a task simultaneously inside the same ram.

Adding gddr5 ram to the Kaveri motherboard would invalidate this whole structural redesign. It won't happen. A llano/trinity/richland APU would benefit from an inbedded chunk of gddr5 ram... Kaveri would not.

HUMA doesn't explain untapped bandwidth and since bandwidth is performance (in gaming circles) where will performance derive from. HD6670 1GB GDDR3 (~40GB/s) vs a HD6670 1GB GDDR5 (~54GB/s) turns into around 15% difference between the cards and the APU's function on the same basis. While HUMA allows the CPU and GPU to access memory independantly that doesn't result in bandwidth, without it no matter the GCN core its going to result in the same outcome a starved iGPU.

 

[mouse24]

Sorry, can someone explain how FM2+ vs FM2 is a "more convenient" upgrade than say FM2 to FM3?

It's nomenclature, to indicate that it's an update, not redesign, of socket FM2. it's also named thusly because it RETAINS COMPATIBILITY with current FM2 chips. of course, few would buy a new mobo without a new APU to go with it. but still, the backwards compatibility is nice

Not always true. AM3+ could support AM3 CPUs but AM3 could not support AM3+ CPUs. It will be seen if FM2 supports Kaveri as a new CPU and GPU means new power layouts and pinouts.

Wasn't some sort of minor update required to get an AM3 board to an AM3+ board? Yet some manufacturers simply didn't do it? I see many 760(and above) socket AM3+ boards on newegg aswell as many that don't.

AM3 to AM3+ is not a socket change but a chipset change, like AM3+ will have a new chipset for SR based parts, the FM2 chipset will have a update for Kaveri but more so for the embeded GDDR5 which Kaveri supports, that said from what is said the Richland/Trinity parts can use FM2+ just not GDDR5 and similarly the Kaveri part can use FM2 but will lose the performance of GDDR5.

I was referring to the 760g/gl/gs/etc chipsets I see. Which were originally AM3.

Take these two boards for example. One is AM3 and the other is AM3+ while they both have the same chipsets. (SB and NB) They are even made by the same manufacturer. What denotes the creation of an AM3+ board over and AM3?

AM3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135315
AM3+: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135318

 

[Olov Hansson]

Kaveri benefits from GDDR 5 and considering its not a socket change or SoC there is not enough space for an embed on the die itself so FM2+ will likely have the GDDR5 embeded on the motherboard itself with extra controller in the NB to allocate it exclusively to the iGPU, as for the rest it will be like Z87 is from Z77 thunderbolt, faster SATA, better VRM's, Faster RAM speed support and of course allowes mobo manufacturers to remarket and redesign.

It is unlikely that GDDR5 will be applied on chip or on the motherboard because it would drive up the price alot. These chips aren't meant to be expensive, quite the opposite. We know the controller can handle GDDR5, but it is likely that it will only come into use in very specific applications of the chip, as with Jaguar in PS3/Xbox One. It may of course be that a small amount of GDDR5 will be used like a large and "fast enough" L3 cache, but not in any considerable amount and not as system memory.

A85/FM2 already has SATA3, so nothing new there, the VRMs aren't part of A85/FM2, but rather they are chosen by the MB producer. The RAM support is also something that is primarily on the APU itself, so any chipset/socket overhaul/update is unlikely to change that. The MBs made for Trinity can handle memory well enough, it is the chip/socket itself that is lacking, so that's where the fix has got to be.

And again - On AMD APUs, the mem controllers are on chip, not on the MB.

 

[Olov Hansson]

HUMA doesn't explain untapped bandwidth and since bandwidth is performance (in gaming circles) where will performance derive from. HD6670 1GB GDDR3 (~40GB/s) vs a HD6670 1GB GDDR5 (~54GB/s) turns into around 15% difference between the cards and the APU's function on the same basis. While HUMA allows the CPU and GPU to access memory independantly that doesn't result in bandwidth, without it no matter the GCN core its going to result in the same outcome a starved iGPU.

I'm almost certain the gain in memory bandwidth will have to come from a wider memory bus and maybe from more channels, rather than from memory speed. It is the easiest solution and would bring gains without waiting for the market to adopt DDR4 or having to resort to nonstandard parts that would drive up the price too much.