AMD: Zen improves IPC by 40%+, AM4 FX CPU Announced

[Lunas]

You'll never see Carrizo in anything you'd want to buy.

Not so sure about that my current laptop is only sporting a 1366x768 screen as long as lenovo's version is not worse than it... I have narrowed down my choices to either the model that replaces the e555 it should be running carrizo but will likely have lenovo's 1366x768 screen or the z 51-70 with the r9 m375 2g in it running with an i7 5500u that is running a 1920x1080 panel

 

[Romale23]

I really hope AMD makes some money. I've been an Intel guy since the core 2 but no competition === realllllly bad.

 

[durquavian]

Have you checked AMD cpu market share in last 2 or 3 years ?

And I listed all of them because they are AMD marketing bullet points made with intention of fooling customers into buying cpu with completly inadequate performance for the time it was released with false hope than it will be great in the future.

You say false hope like they were intentionally lying. Even back with bulldozer the hope/assumption/educated guessing was that Multithread was the next step as single thread was showing a hefty slow down in performance or as we know it : a bottleneck. APUs from AMD weren't showing a lack in performance at all. Compared to Intel on a gaming perspective, AMD blows Intel away completely. Don't look at avg FPS but look at frame time graphs. Intel iGPUs are terrible, far worse than any CF debackle back in the day. When someone is looking for a gaming APU without discreet AMD is the clear choice. The only problem is Intels paying for market share and excluding many opportunities for consumers to get the superior APU option.

 

[Michaelius]

Yes that's what I call AMD chasing their own anti Intel wunderwaffe.

They created in their brains delusional scenario where people are buying low end cpu because it has better iGPU when market reality is that even cheap dGPU blow those apus aways and the second hand market is full of nice cheap gpus from previous generations.

 

[daglesj]

Not so sure about that my current laptop is only sporting a 1366x768 screen as long as lenovo's version is not worse than it... I have narrowed down my choices to either the model that replaces the e555 it should be running carrizo but will likely have lenovo's 1366x768 screen or the z 51-70 with the r9 m375 2g in it running with an i7 5500u that is running a 1920x1080 panel

Why would you remotely consider a laptop with a 1366x768 screen in 2015/2016?

Nasty.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

They created in their brains delusional scenario...

If only AMD had access to your boundless market insight and engineering knowledge.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Yes that's what I call AMD chasing their own anti Intel wunderwaffe.

They created in their brains delusional scenario where people are buying low end cpu because it has better iGPU when market reality is that even cheap dGPU blow those apus aways and the second hand market is full of nice cheap gpus from previous generations.

There are plenty solutions where AMD systems just outperform anything just because of the cost. In reality the enthusiast market is small selling more chips on low end models is a lot more money.

There are not that many of us on the planet that can or want to sink money into a decent desktop for most other people it is not the case.

 

[Lunas]

Why would you remotely consider a laptop with a 1366x768 screen in 2015/2016?

Nasty.

Well one carrizo likely will not get paired with anything but a 1366x768 screen on a budget model laptop any decent laptop will get an Intel chip.


What I want is the fx- 8800p I have looked at the projected benches the i7 5500u is supposed to beat it...

my issue with the i7 laptop is it only comes in brushed aluminum colored plastic where the updated e555 will be all black and be a ThinkPad vs one of the regular line. I have been hearing June is when carrizo chips will show up

also I have heard lenovo's 1080 screen quality sucked.

 

[daglesj]

Well one carrizo likely will not get paired with anything but a 1366x768 screen on a budget model laptop any decent laptop will get an Intel chip.


What I want is the fx- 8800p I have looked at the projected benches the i7 5500u is supposed to beat it...

my issue with the i7 laptop is it only comes in brushed aluminum colored plastic where the updated e555 will be all black and be a ThinkPad vs one of the regular line. I have been hearing June is when carrizo chips will show up

also I have heard lenovo's 1080 screen quality sucked.

I'd still take a sucky 1080p screen over a truly awful and super sucky 1366x768 screen.

The Intel machines will always be better spec. AMD only goes in cheap landfill models now, built purely to fend off any 'monopoly' legal action.

"Look yes we do make AMD laptops...look at this POS! Costs us $100 to make and you can buy it for $250!"

 

[Lunas]

I'd still take a sucky 1080p screen over a truly awful and super sucky 1366x768 screen.

The Intel machines will always be better spec. AMD only goes in cheap landfill models now, built purely to fend off any 'monopoly' legal action.

"Look yes we do make AMD laptops...look at this POS! Costs us $100 to make and you can buy it for $250!"

Ehh the z 51 does seem like the better option i7 amd r9 m375 dgpu and the 1080 display.

or I can pin my hopes on sometime in June the 8800p shows up on lenovo and it is priced well. Hopes are that the dgpu they put with carrizo is the m375.

 

[fixedmy7970]

zen makes me moist,

 

[XoR]

Q&A with AMD

Q: Will Zen architecture make AMD to be competitive again on X86 CPU market?
A: Mu

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Q&A with AMD

Q: Will Zen architecture make AMD to be competitive again on X86 CPU market?
A: Mu

You are not the only one that lacks a good understanding what is really happening.

The main reason is you don't want to see the correlation between R&D budget and performance. Try doing something in the real world with 5+ times less money as your opponent.

Then wonder why your opponent does better with more money ....

 

[jwcalla]

You are not the only one that lacks a good understanding what is really happening.

The main reason is you don't want to see the correlation between R&D budget and performance. Try doing something in the real world with 5+ times less money as your opponent.

Then wonder why your opponent does better with more money ....

This is why they need to get out of x86.

 

[dandragonrage]

This is why they need to get out of x86.

Maybe eventually, but they need to bring something else up to equal or better performance, first. ARM's instruction sets are fine and all but there are lots of players in the ARM world and simply releasing ARM chips doesn't make you special. Look at how well Nvidia's done with their Tegra line. Not very well!

Hopefully K12 outperforms everything else ARM and hopefully they will follow it up with chips that can actually compete with modern x86 chips like, say, a Haswell Core i3. Just bringing it up to compete with Intel's latest Atom chips wouldn't be enough unless they want to give up not just PCs but consoles.

Smartphones and tablets might be hot, but AMD cannot rely on only those because Qualcomm isn't getting dethroned anytime soon. Qualcomm prices are low and it's hard for others to compete. And when it comes to smartphones and tablets, not many people will care if the cost increase does bring better AMD or Nvidia graphics. Most people only care about the cost, period.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Smartphones and tablets might be hot, but AMD cannot rely on only those because Qualcomm isn't getting dethroned anytime soon. Qualcomm prices are low and it's hard for others to compete. And when it comes to smartphones and tablets, not many people will care if the cost increase does bring better AMD or Nvidia graphics. Most people only care about the cost, period.

It is not about delivering the complete package as seen on tablets and phones just deliver some of the things AMD can do well with (radeon/gcn cores...)

 

[Lunas]

This is why they need to get out of x86.

What is why? Arm or this whole thread?


And no they need to nut up or shut down and give intel a big black eye with zen. Bulldozer was a flop even they will admit that but they committed to it and they were not going to waste the R&D money they had spent so they pushed out the entirety of that turd. And now have gone back to square one and redesigned based on the current lithography.

Zen better by release pick up another 20% performance gain over excavator they need to be dead even with intel again.

and if amd leaves x86 they better just shut the doors they don't have anything else even if they were to jump into portable SOC they would need to beat intel nvidia and Qualcomm. Am i saying it is impossible no it is just why make that much more work when all your market shares are dwindling away.

 

[jwcalla]

What is why? Arm or this whole thread?


And no they need to nut up or shut down and give intel a big black eye with zen. Bulldozer was a flop even they will admit that but they committed to it and they were not going to waste the R&D money they had spent so they pushed out the entirety of that turd. And now have gone back to square one and redesigned based on the current lithography.

Zen better by release pick up another 20% performance gain over excavator they need to be dead even with intel again.

and if amd leaves x86 they better just shut the doors they don't have anything else even if they were to jump into portable SOC they would need to beat intel nvidia and Qualcomm. Am i saying it is impossible no it is just why make that much more work when all your market shares are dwindling away.

To be honest I'm not really sure what they should do. Maybe they should just focus on GPUs instead, and be a graphics company like nvidia.

Or maybe try to focus on non-x86 CPU designs for specialty markets (like consoles, embedded, servers, whatever). I know they're doing some of this and plan to in the future. Maybe that's ARM. Maybe that's POWER. Maybe it's SPARC. I don't know.

I just see x86 as a dead-end for anybody but Intel. Intel has mastered the ISA and, more importantly, all of the distribution channels. AMD focusing on x86 is like chasing a rainbow at this point.

 

[Lunas]

To be honest I'm not really sure what they should do. Maybe they should just focus on GPUs instead, and be a graphics company like nvidia.

Or maybe try to focus on non-x86 CPU designs for specialty markets (like consoles, embedded, servers, whatever). I know they're doing some of this and plan to in the future. Maybe that's ARM. Maybe that's POWER. Maybe it's SPARC. I don't know.

I just see x86 as a dead-end for anybody but Intel. Intel has mastered the ISA and, more importantly, all of the distribution channels. AMD focusing on x86 is like chasing a rainbow at this point.

Yet all 3 of the console makers chose amd APUs over intel and nvidia.

no they need to either go for gold or concentrate on apu and low-mid level cpu's to cover the cheaper disposable pc market. If they corner the 200-350$ laptop market the console market and hopefully the next gen that will be fine. If they delved into arm and hit some embedded systems like for google tv amd could hit the low end arm market and knock out all the cheap crappy chips like the marvell, media-tek and such but amd seems to plan to use arm chips for servers. Amd was very into smaller scale embedded soc and ic back in the 90's and early 2000's and was able to all the way up to 2009 when it went fabless by spinning off from global foundries. I just think amd could do so much more with arm than servers they could hit cheap tablets, cars, cameras, phones, game consoles, blue-ray players, mp3 players.

AMD used to be in EVERY device made you could open it up and there it would be amd printed on the ic. Over the years they scaled back from everything,

It is being said they are going to use samsung to print the 14nm zen rather than global or tsmc.

 

[Michaelius]

Yet all 3 of the console makers chose amd APUs over intel and nvidia.

no they need to either go for gold or concentrate on apu and low-mid level cpu's to cover the cheaper disposeable pc market. If they corner the 200-350$ laptop market that will be fine.

Yeah because they were cheap.

As a result we got consoles that strugle to keep 30 fps due to anemic jaguar cores.

 

[Lunas]

Yeah because they were cheap.

As a result we got consoles that strugle to keep 30 fps due to anemic jaguar cores.

better that than paying 850 minimum for each console...

honestly speaking i feel the ibm custom chip was the way to go but at least now pc game makers can code for the consoles and pc with only a little bit of difference and we can start seeing some growth in the games industry rather than ports from consoles. Now they just have to leave the low-mid range scale open to whatever the consoles power is at the time...

with any luck amd will be doing the ps5 the double xbone and the wiiu2 with zen cores...

and maybe just maybe the xbone and ps4 will get some sort of directx 12 to ease up the strain on those jaguar cores...

 

[griff30]

and maybe just maybe the xbone and ps4 will get some sort of directx 12 to ease up the strain on those jaguar cores...

Xboxone likely will get DX12 .
PS4, not likely. More like Mantel optimizations from AMD.

 

[daglesj]

Yeah because they were cheap.

As a result we got consoles that strugle to keep 30 fps due to anemic jaguar cores.

Yep, Intel didn't need the business or the hassle. Nvidia...just didn't want the hassle.

AMD on the other hand knew if it tied in with MS/Sony and Nintendo it would hold off the banks from closing them down. Plus they had a stack of CPU/APU designs no one wanted.

Unfortunately, the CPU cores are pretty weak and this generation of consoles is pretty disappointing from a tech standpoint. I don't think they will have the legs of the previous gen.

The next gen? Just see if they can get a previous gen 12 thread Xeon in there. Will still decimate the current chips.

 

[gamerk2]

Yep, Intel didn't need the business or the hassle. Nvidia...just didn't want the hassle.

AMD on the other hand knew if it tied in with MS/Sony and Nintendo it would hold off the banks from closing them down. Plus they had a stack of CPU/APU designs no one wanted.

Unfortunately, the CPU cores are pretty weak and this generation of consoles is pretty disappointing from a tech standpoint. I don't think they will have the legs of the previous gen.

The next gen? Just see if they can get a previous gen 12 thread Xeon in there. Will still decimate the current chips.

Fun fact: The CPUs in the current crop of consoles have about the same power as the Xbox 360's main CPU (~110 GFLOPS). Which means, in the case of the PS4, CPU power actually DECLINED from last gen (Cell was capable of about ~170 GFLOPS typical, or ~240 GFLOPS theoretical maximum).

Also remember: AMD isn't making a lot of profit on these parts, and will likely be paying for fab space on older processes for the next decade, so long term, I wouldn't be shocked if this deal starts COSTING AMD money.

 

[daglesj]

Fun fact: The CPUs in the current crop of consoles have about the same power as the Xbox 360's main CPU (~110 GFLOPS). Which means, in the case of the PS4, CPU power actually DECLINED from last gen (Cell was capable of about ~170 GFLOPS typical, or ~240 GFLOPS theoretical maximum).

Also remember: AMD isn't making a lot of profit on these parts, and will likely be paying for fab space on older processes for the next decade, so long term, I wouldn't be shocked if this deal starts COSTING AMD money.

Oh indeed, as I said the only reason they did it was it gave them breathing space by going into business as a critical supplier for three major corporations.

If the banks and creditors tried to call in the debts they would have Sony/MS and Nintedo telling them to get stuffed.

Smart move but it probably will hurt them in the end. That's why no one else was keen for the gig.

 

[Red Falcon]

Fun fact: The CPUs in the current crop of consoles have about the same power as the Xbox 360's main CPU (~110 GFLOPS). Which means, in the case of the PS4, CPU power actually DECLINED from last gen (Cell was capable of about ~170 GFLOPS typical, or ~240 GFLOPS theoretical maximum).

While this may be true in terms of raw compute (floating point) operations, this doesn't include integer performance, of which the new Jaguar CPUs are far more powerful over the old PowerPC CPUs.
FLOPS ≠ Performance

Games which are remade from the PS3/XB360 to the PS4/Xbone actually run better, due to fewer memory constrains and limitations (256MB/~512MB vs 8GB).
Look at The Last of Us on PS3 vs on PS4; by what you just stated, the game should run worse, yet on the PS4, with much greater textures, runs a lot smoother with higher FPS.

The main issue with these new consoles is that the iGPUs are severely underpowered.
This is far greater of a performance hit than weak x86 cores on the CPUs.

They could have gotten away with the weak CPUs, as long as there had been more GPU processing capabilities to work with.

 

[XoR]

This is why they need to get out of x86.

If they cannot compete in performance and power usage with Intel in X86 then they will not be able to do that on ARM front with all those companies making ARM cpus. Qualcomm have much more resources to make processors than AMD.

Only way to cut R&D costs would be to make generic ARM CPU's like MediaTek does. But what would be the point if we already have MediaTek and Allwinner and other crappy chip companies? This market is already overcrowded.

Only thing that AMD have that other companies do not is X86 license and this is the direction they should concentrate on. Not using it would be the stupidest thing they could do.

 

[Lunas]

Xboxone likely will get DX12 .
PS4, not likely. More like Mantel optimizations from AMD.

Actually what I have been reading is the ps4 uses open gl based api but allows lower level control of hardware

and yes x bone is going to get a lower level derivative of dx12

 

[dandragonrage]

While this may be true in terms of raw compute (floating point) operations, this doesn't include integer performance, of which the new Jaguar CPUs are far more powerful over the old PowerPC CPUs.
FLOPS ≠ Performance

I dunno... Cell was pretty optimized for integer stuff.. But it was hard to fully utilize. Needed lots of parallelism - SIMD type stuff.

I also recall there reading an article years ago about some issue with the performance transferring memory to one of the caches on the chip and that it was a small fraction of the speed of the memory. Wonder if that was true... and I wonder if that was true for actual production (rather than prototype) silicon...

 

[Red Falcon]

Yeah, the Cell processor was very capable, and remember that one of the SPE was disabled on the Cell in the PS3, and another was dedicated to the OS sub-routines, leaving only six usable out of eight.
IBM only finally retired it in late 2012 or early 2013 if I remember right.

Still, I don't think enough credit is being given to those Jaguar CPUs in the new consoles.
The main issue isn't the CPU, it's the iGPU.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

If they cannot compete in performance and power usage with Intel in X86 then they will not be able to do that on ARM front with all those companies making ARM cpus. Qualcomm have much more resources to make processors than AMD.

Only way to cut R&D costs would be to make generic ARM CPU's like MediaTek does. But what would be the point if we already have MediaTek and Allwinner and other crappy chip companies? This market is already overcrowded.

Only thing that AMD have that other companies do not is X86 license and this is the direction they should concentrate on. Not using it would be the stupidest thing they could do.

It is good that you list this. What they did is buy a license from ARM then you get the basic things delivered to you. This means that AMD gets the default design and can work from there that is how ARM operates that is why it is in "nearly" every small device.

You are confusing yourself with retail products AMD must make while in reality AMD only wants to ship to OEM customers so if you want to make a tablet AMD will ship the cpu. AMD can deliver a lot more then MediaTek can due to those GCN cores.

Via still has a x86 license. Since AMD can't win scorched earth might be the only way to go When AMD takes the performance lead in X86 and can not increase the market share AMD would have no other option. .

It sounds very harsh but when the competition locks you out of the market you can not justify spending money in that market AMD done it for to many years now.
...

 

[jwcalla]

Only thing that AMD have that other companies do not is X86 license and this is the direction they should concentrate on. Not using it would be the stupidest thing they could do.

They'll always be a second-rate x86 company though. Which means second-rate margins.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is for sure... but the whole modern AMD strategy hinges on being a mediocre company. It's like there's no ambition to kick everyone's ass. I don't see a path forward with this strategy.

I'm assuming they have some kind of unique CPU and GPU expertise over there that nobody else in the world has... and they just need to go ahead and put that experience to work in unique products. I could be wrong though. The place could be completely vacuous of talent these days.

 

[Lunas]

They'll always be a second-rate x86 company though. Which means second-rate margins.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is for sure... but the whole modern AMD strategy hinges on being a mediocre company. It's like there's no ambition to kick everyone's ass. I don't see a path forward with this strategy.

I'm assuming they have some kind of unique CPU and GPU expertise over there that nobody else in the world has... and they just need to go ahead and put that experience to work in unique products. I could be wrong though. The place could be completely vacuous of talent these days.

they need to diversify and expand the market control the only place i see that they can do that is arm portable devices yes qualcomm and nvidia and samsung are competitors. But what if samsung and amd did some sort of partnership samsungs fabs it with 14nm fin fet and licenses some enxyos tech the result is a soc to compete with that super chip of nvidia's

 

[ManofGod]

They'll always be a second-rate x86 company though. Which means second-rate margins.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is for sure... but the whole modern AMD strategy hinges on being a mediocre company. It's like there's no ambition to kick everyone's ass. I don't see a path forward with this strategy.

I'm assuming they have some kind of unique CPU and GPU expertise over there that nobody else in the world has... and they just need to go ahead and put that experience to work in unique products. I could be wrong though. The place could be completely vacuous of talent these days.

Second place based on size, yes, second rate, nope. Ambition is clearly there in Zen and the 300 series but ambition alone does not pay the bills. Things take time but I figure you already now that.

Personally, I have given up responding emotionally to these threads. Logically, things are what they are.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Yeah because they were cheap.

As a result we got consoles that strugle to keep 30 fps due to anemic jaguar cores.

Why do you persist in just writing non stop nonsense ?

Console games in general are very well optimized unlike PC they don't tend to use high level API. The PS4 version of Battlefield 4 gets really high batch count something of 40000. Gaming on the PC (DX11) is limited to 15000 if your engine is really optimized. This means that the consoles use much more and do perform.

You wouldn't be able to build a PC that can handle that batch count (DX11) without sacrificing a lot of eye candy and then still would work a lot slower

That there crappy console games that do not perform is not unique every platform suffers from it.

 

[dandragonrage]

It is good that you list this. What they did is buy a license from ARM then you get the basic things delivered to you. This means that AMD gets the default design and can work from there that is how ARM operates that is why it is in "nearly" every small device.

You are confusing yourself with retail products AMD must make while in reality AMD only wants to ship to OEM customers so if you want to make a tablet AMD will ship the cpu. AMD can deliver a lot more then MediaTek can due to those GCN cores.

Look, man, you are so wrong that it's pretty hilarious. You keep talking about those GCN cores but NOBODY CARES. Nvidia offers the best graphics in the ARM world BY FAR and nobody is buying their product. Adding their own high-quality graphics in is not cheap, either.

If you think AMD is having trouble keeping up with Intel, well, it will be even WORSE to keep up with Qualcomm in the ARM world..

Qualcomm, frankly, sucks. Their designs are late. Adreno is crap. They don't push the envelope with the process node. They're still on kernel 3.4 which is missing many optimizations from newer kernels and which also offers much more portability (making the job of OEMs far easier). Their custom cores are no better than ARM's reference designs. The only reason Qualcomm is winning is because they are cheap. Period. Qualcomm sucks.

Edit: P.S. this is being realistic and not hating on AMD, because honestly I'd like to see Qualcomm become unpopular and for AMD and Nvidia to become common choices in ARM. Would also rather see TI make a comeback with their OMAP line than have Qualcomm continue on this course.

 

[Lunas]

Look, man, you are so wrong that it's pretty hilarious. You keep talking about those GCN cores but NOBODY CARES. Nvidia offers the best graphics in the ARM world BY FAR and nobody is buying their product. Adding their own high-quality graphics in is not cheap, either.

If you think AMD is having trouble keeping up with Intel, well, it will be even WORSE to keep up with Qualcomm in the ARM world..

Qualcomm, frankly, sucks. Their designs are late. Adreno is crap. They don't push the envelope with the process node. They're still on kernel 3.4 which is missing many optimizations from newer kernels and which also offers much more portability (making the job of OEMs far easier). Their custom cores are no better than ARM's reference designs. The only reason Qualcomm is winning is because they are cheap. Period. Qualcomm sucks.

I don't know amd is historically cheap as well but the thing is I don't think they have the vision to kick Qualcomm right now. As it is a very good time to do something to that end as like it or not the 810 is a flop. Nvidia is too expensive and everything else sucks there is a place for amd in consumer electronics but they are going to arm servers... dumb move with limited growth options. They need to do servers, routers, tablets, sff, set top boxes, tv, and anything else they can get the low bid on.

 

[durquavian]

Look, man, you are so wrong that it's pretty hilarious. You keep talking about those GCN cores but NOBODY CARES. Nvidia offers the best graphics in the ARM world BY FAR and nobody is buying their product. Adding their own high-quality graphics in is not cheap, either.

If you think AMD is having trouble keeping up with Intel, well, it will be even WORSE to keep up with Qualcomm in the ARM world..

Qualcomm, frankly, sucks. Their designs are late. Adreno is crap. They don't push the envelope with the process node. They're still on kernel 3.4 which is missing many optimizations from newer kernels and which also offers much more portability (making the job of OEMs far easier). Their custom cores are no better than ARM's reference designs. The only reason Qualcomm is winning is because they are cheap. Period. Qualcomm sucks.

Edit: P.S. this is being realistic and not hating on AMD, because honestly I'd like to see Qualcomm become unpopular and for AMD and Nvidia to become common choices in ARM. Would also rather see TI make a comeback with their OMAP line than have Qualcomm continue on this course.

Maybe you are unaware of AMD's business of designing for particular needs. Like chips/sets for automotive computers. AMD and even Intel build custom chips that you wont find on Newegg.com. So QUALCOMM isn't always the competition.

 

[trizc]

deleted

 

[jwcalla]

Qualcomm, frankly, sucks. Their designs are late. Adreno is crap. They don't push the envelope with the process node. They're still on kernel 3.4 which is missing many optimizations from newer kernels and which also offers much more portability (making the job of OEMs far easier). Their custom cores are no better than ARM's reference designs. The only reason Qualcomm is winning is because they are cheap. Period. Qualcomm sucks.

They earned dominance because they had the superior radio tech. But Samsung has caught up, which is why they went with their own Exynos for the new S6.

Right now smartphones and tablets aren't really the space that NVIDIA and AMD need to be in. If they're going to succeed with ARM designs they need to look at different markets (or try to make their own markets).