AMD's Zen 32 Physical Cores In A Single Socket Explained

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Earlier this month a leaked Linux patch suggested that AMD's Zen processors would feature 32 physical cores. Well, a video presentation from two weeks ago at CERN has surfaced that details AMD's upcoming x86 processors. One of the slides (at the 12:32 mark) does confirm a single socket 32 core CPU, Symmetrical Multi Threading, 8 channels of DDR4 and support for PCIe gen 3.0. The catch, according to the engineer giving the presentation, is that AMD is putting two 16 core CPUs on the same die to get 32 cores in a single socket. The video below has everything you need to know. Thanks to Pieter3dnow for the heads up.
 
I don't know if IPC will rival intel, but 32 cores would be great for virtualization
 
but 32 cores would be great for virtualization
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I doubt many of us will be able to afford (or want it with the frequency it will run) it though. Hopefully enterprise users will adopt these and pay enterprise prices helping AMD out of its dire financial situation.
 
One interesting thing is 8 channels of DDR4. Does that mean that there will be 3 different sockets? One for the mainstream with dual channel ddr4. One for the servers / workstations with quad channel ddr4 and a third enterprise only with 8 channel ddr4.
 
40% improvement in IPC? So they're just catching up with Ivy Bridge :p.
 
Armenius said:
40% improvement in IPC? So they're just catching up with Ivy Bridge :p.
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I'm on IVY-E @ 4.7Ghz.

If AMD actually gets the 40% improvement in IPC and it doesn't draw enough electricity to power a small country, my next setup may very well be AMD.

The other stipulation is how good their new memory controller is. It was awesome back in the Athlon64 days, but ever since the first Intel chips with an IMC came out AMD has lagged way behind.
 
but ever since the first Intel chips with an IMC came out AMD has lagged way behind.
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I think a lot of the problem is Intel has a faster lower latency cache versus bulldozer.
 
God bless AMD.

But, no, this CPU will not be faster than your Intel. We all know this.
 
This chip isn't going to be the one released to newegg and purchased on Black Friday. Much like how Intel has their own super core chip right now we would never be able to buy it without going to the grey market.
 
More cores...good for some tasks, but not for most as we've seen. Let's see what the clocks and IPC are.
 
Armenius said:
40% improvement in IPC? So they're just catching up with Ivy Bridge :p.[

40% over its last cat core that is excavator and that 40% is not taking into account the process improvement of going from 28nm to 14nm... meaning it will be competitive with the latest intel has to offer.
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maxius said:
Armenius said:
40% improvement in IPC? So they're just catching up with Ivy Bridge :p.[

40% over its last cat core that is excavator and that 40% is not taking into account the process improvement of going from 28nm to 14nm... meaning it will be competitive with the latest intel has to offer.
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Competitive with Skylake? I HIGHLY doubt that. I remember when bulldozer was coming out and everyone was saying how great it would be versus Intel. People have short memories around here.

I'm not again AMD but wake me up when they are competitive bc I haven't seen that for over a decade
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mls1995 said:
maxius said:
Competitive with Skylake? I HIGHLY doubt that. I remember when bulldozer was coming out and everyone was saying how great it would be versus Intel. People have short memories around here.

I'm not again AMD but wake me up when they are competitive bc I haven't seen that for over a decade
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well remember amd is the reason we are all not on ia64 with rdram... they created the 64bit extension to x86 and they supported ddr... it was enough to move the great intel away from rdram and ia64 :p could history repeat itself?
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I think "how" these cores work and single core performance are going to be important. Bulldozer/Excavator launched with 8 cores on the high-end mainstream/consumer product, but we all know the performance and heat didn't keep up with Intel. I can only hope that Zen cores "work more like" Intel style cores (unless AMD has come up with a wildly superior design; a small chance, but it has happened before after all), because we all know that AMD cores dont' hold a candle to Intel's one for one, thus far.

I really, really hope Zen is all that we've been waiting for to give competition for Intel who has been jacking prices left and right, is now forcing restrictions on non-K overclocking, crams an unknown "black box" in the midst of your CPU that you don't control yet has full access to your system, and more. If AMD can show they're acting ethically and offer most of the performance + overclocking of Intel at a significantly lower price, I think many enthusiasts would flock to them for all but the highest-end builds. Lets hope that there will soon be suitable competition and that Zen won't disappoint.
 
I don't think it will be faster than intel. But if they can get 40% IPC and decent clocks/power etc then it probably will be good enough for me.
Video cards are the main gaming bottleneck and will continue to be with the pathetic processors in the consoles. Most of my other workloads are more I/O than cpu limited.
 
drescherjm said:
One interesting thing is 8 channels of DDR4. Does that mean that there will be 3 different sockets? One for the mainstream with dual channel ddr4. One for the servers / workstations with quad channel ddr4 and a third enterprise only with 8 channel ddr4.
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I think it would be too damn expensive to have 3 sockets. Probably make a single server socket, with "4to 8 channels." It would be up to the OEM to determine how many channels their board supports. And obviously moar channels = moar ram!

Just like we have the Asrock x99 MiniITX motherboard with only two memory channels. Just because they're in the socket spec, doesn't mean you have to use them :D

And just like the 5820k proves, variable connectivity to the processor is not hard to work around :D
 
Trimlock said:
This chip isn't going to be the one released to newegg and purchased on Black Friday. Much like how Intel has their own super core chip right now we would never be able to buy it without going to the grey market.
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You mean this one? E5-2699 V3
Or this one? E7-8890 V3

It's AVX/FMA3 performance that I'm hoping is up to snuff, would make a good (hopefully cost effective) DC rig for Primegrid but those accelerations are needed to beat even a lowly i3.
 
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this probably gonna be a server cpu, i hope they didn't mess it up cause if they did, it will be the end of amd
 
buhbuhfet said:
this probably gonna be a server cpu, i hope they didn't mess it up cause if they did, it will be the end of amd
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This will definitely be a server CPU. And it will likely cost more than $5000 US provided it is competitive with Intel.
 
Jeez some people talk as if AMD was a 486 dx33 vs intel' s latest.... I know theres a gap but is not world ending. Jeez same ati nvidia.
 
I'll just wait until it's in the wild and a few people I trust *a[H]em* have had their hands on one.
 
TwistedAegis said:
More cores...good for some tasks, but not for most as we've seen. Let's see what the clocks and IPC are.
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From the perspective of enterprise - which is where the money is - it is a big deal. A 32 core processor is obviously not for home users, gamers, or even most workstations. It's for enterprise. The highest core count Intel has to offer is 18 on a single processor. 32 is a big upgrade from that. If performance per core and power consumption is comparable, it will be very profitable for AMD.
 
Shameless Liar said:
From the perspective of enterprise - which is where the money is - it is a big deal. A 32 core processor is obviously not for home users, gamers, or even most workstations. It's for enterprise. The highest core count Intel has to offer is 18 on a single processor. 32 is a big upgrade from that. If performance per core and power consumption is comparable, it will be very profitable for AMD.
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For sure. Just still a bit disappointing in the consumer realm, yes we've seen big gains over the years, but the pace has slowed drastically.

I keep hitting the [H] front page for some bombshell new CPU or GPU review, but, so far all just incremental improvement despite all the hype.
 
I'll replace my MainPC with a Full AMD machine in 10 months IF AMD doesn't muck this up by:

- AMD doesn't overprice Polaris 12(Fury-X at $650 last year was over price, Polaris 12 with GTX980-SLI performance for $500 and I'm in)

- AMD doesn't overpice Zen (say the 4-Core/12-Thread part has i5-6600k performance/IPC, then AMD should be pricing it along the lines of a high-end i3, with the 8-Core/24-Thread Part performing like the i7-6700k but priced along the line of the 6600k, and the big-dog 16-Core/48-Thread part performing on par with an i7-5960x but priced a bit higher than the i7-6700k ($450)

AMD has to get through their heads, just because they can match the performance of the competition, they shouldn't match the price at that performance level. They were most successful when they offered a ridiculous Price/performance comparison to Intel's parts (Pentium 3 vs Athlon, AthlonXP vs Pentium 4, Athlon64 vs a Worse Pentium 4, and the Athlon64x2 vs a slightly better Pentium 4).

It's nice having competition, but it's better to have competent competition.
 
- AMD doesn't overpice Zen (say the 4-Core/12-Thread part has i5-6600k performance/IPC, then AMD should be pricing it along the lines of a high-end i3, with the 8-Core/24-Thread Part performing like the i7-6700k but priced along the line of the 6600k, and the big-dog 16-Core/48-Thread part performing on par with an i7-5960x but priced a bit higher than the i7-6700k ($450)
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Thre are 2 threads per core just like Intel.
 
AMD has to get through their heads, just because they can match the performance of the competition, they shouldn't match the price at that performance level.
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I feel AMD will give you 2 extra cores for a similar price. I mean the 4 core/ 8 threaded Zen will match up against the i5. The 6 core / 12 threaded Zen will match up against the i7 mainstream processor. I am not sure exactly where the 95W 8 core / 16 threaded processor will match against. Maybe the 6 core /12 threaded bottom end Broadwell LGA2011-3.
 
drescherjm said:
In this case I say not even remotely likely.
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Which is exactly what you probably would have said back then too. This new "Athlon" CPU ... be competitive with Pentium 3? Not even remotely likely. Just look how bad the K6 was!

:p
 
Taldren said:
Which is exactly what you probably would have said back then too. This new "Athlon" CPU ... be competitive with Pentium 3? Not even remotely likely. Just look how bad the K6 was!

:p
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No I purchased 100s of Athlons.
 
mls1995 said:
maxius said:
Competitive with Skylake? I HIGHLY doubt that. I remember when bulldozer was coming out and everyone was saying how great it would be versus Intel. People have short memories around here.

I'm not again AMD but wake me up when they are competitive bc I haven't seen that for over a decade
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...or maybe they have longer memories than back to Bulldozer? Bulldozer is an outlier for AMD. For most of their history, they've been competitive with Intel.
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That's pretty interesting that AMD will be putting 16 Zen cores on a die. I wonder how closely those 16 cores share resources, particularly if it's anything better than a shared LLC or HTT link between clusters of (4) cores.
 
I wonder if this guy is a little confused though. All the components of the Zen and K12 are designed to be modular.

A Zen module is made up of 4 cores connected to a shared L3 cache. For them to increase the core count, they just need to add more modules. I really doubt the 32 core would have wasted space with two platform processors, pcie3 controllers, ddr4 controllers, etc.
 
variant said:
I wonder if this guy is a little confused though. All the components of the Zen and K12 are designed to be modular.

A Zen module is made up of 4 cores connected to a shared L3 cache. For them to increase the core count, they just need to add more modules. I really doubt the 32 core would have wasted space with two platform processors, pcie3 controllers, ddr4 controllers, etc.
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Umm, why not?

The I/O scales with the number of cores. This has always been a weakness of traditional FSB platforms, where you can only add so many cores before the shared bus is overwhelmed. They also only have a fixed number of memory channels, so if you add cores you get bandwidth-starved either way.

Why wouldn't they add more memory controllers with each modular piece? This is the same technique they use for the 16-core Piledriver Opterons. AMD obviously doesn't value the performance difference enough for their 16-core products to spend the hundreds of millions it would take to do a separate larger die.

It's not so expensive to patch together two dies on the same package. Given how rare the 32-core will probably be, it's not outrageous for them to put 4 on the same package.


And if there's surprising performance/watt advantage over Intel, and therefore enough demand, they can always push-through a native 16-core. That's the whole idea of a modular-architecture: they can do it when they need to!
 
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