AMD Zen Shrinks x86 Area and Power

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Recently at the ISCC, International Solid-State Circuits Conference, it was revealed that the upcoming AMD Zen cores are more compact than Intel's current 14nm x86 core technology. Intel engineers and analysts agreed that the Zen core is clearly competitive, but there are other variables to account for. AMD's decision to use a metal-insulator-metal capacitor has led to a 15% reduction in switching capacitance. This gives Zen an edge with lower operating voltages, greater per core voltage, and frequency control. Also of note is that there are two eight-core designs running at 3.4GHz with simultaneous multithreading enabled.

As mentioned above there are many other variables for AMD engineers to contend with when designing the new Zen core. I'm going to temper my excitement for the new Ryzen processors coming from AMD until Kyle can benchmark them with some real world testing. Show me the numbers is the rallying call, but this news does get me excited for the launch. What does two eight-core designs mean exactly? x86 and ARM?

The paper detailed techniques AMD used to reduce switching capacitance by 15 percent compared to its existing chips. For example, Zen marked AMD’s first use of a metal-insulator-metal capacitor which helped lower operating voltages and provide greater per-core voltage and frequency control.

Engineers tracked on a weekly basis power benchmarks on high activity regions for more than a year to reduce switching capacitance. The company now has two eight-core designs running with simultaneous multithreading at 3.4 GHz.
 
Not really. This doesn't take into account the fact that Sky Lake/ Kaby Lake (whichever is the comparison) has integrated graphics, which takes up nearly 1/3 if the die, where the Ryzen does not. Take out the 16-17mm^2 from the integrated graphics, and Intel's chip actually comes out about 10-12mm^2 smaller.
 
dgingeri said:
Not really. This doesn't take into account the fact that Sky Lake/ Kaby Lake (whichever is the comparison) has integrated graphics, which takes up nearly 1/3 if the die, where the Ryzen does not. Take out the 16-17mm^2 from the integrated graphics, and Intel's chip actually comes out about 10-12mm^2 smaller.
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Are you suggesting that amd, intel engineers and analysts missed that?
 
dgingeri said:
Not really. This doesn't take into account the fact that Sky Lake/ Kaby Lake (whichever is the comparison) has integrated graphics, which takes up nearly 1/3 if the die, where the Ryzen does not. Take out the 16-17mm^2 from the integrated graphics, and Intel's chip actually comes out about 10-12mm^2 smaller.
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The whole die area of Skylake is 122 mm^2, so I believe they are doing it correctly and not including the GPU in the comparison.
 
dgingeri said:
Not really. This doesn't take into account the fact that Sky Lake/ Kaby Lake (whichever is the comparison) has integrated graphics, which takes up nearly 1/3 if the die, where the Ryzen does not. Take out the 16-17mm^2 from the integrated graphics, and Intel's chip actually comes out about 10-12mm^2 smaller.
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You cant just "take it out" though. It's there for a reason.
 
Shouldn't the measurement for core area be just a CPU core?

I would imagine that it is not including everything else that is bundled on the die as Vyedmic stated.
 
"Competitor A"? That makes me wonder, has Via done anything with their x86 license lately?

I mean, we know that this isn't about Via, they're still at 40nm... but still I remember a friend's dad heating his garage with a Cyrix 6x86.
 
dgingeri said:
No, I'm suggesting the marketeers intentionally left that out.
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This is AMD's show, they are only comparing cpu core size (apples with apples). If they had compared it to an Intel cpu w/integrated gpu (apples with oranges) the world would turn upside down and the internet would break. But they could then claim that Xen is 2/3rds the size of a similar Intel proc. ;)
 
Jim Kim said:
This is AMD's show, they are only comparing cpu core size (apples with apples). If they had compared it to an Intel cpu w/integrated gpu (apples with oranges) the world would turn upside down and the internet would break. But they could then claim that Xen is 2/3rds the size of a similar Intel proc. ;)
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OK, if they're actually comparing cores to cores, then I'm good with it, and I admit I'm wrong. It just looked like it looked with the Intel chip having integrated graphics and all.
 
viscountalpha said:
I'm still expecting amd to blow this just like the patriots/falcon superbowl game.
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Please let the fail be less epic! You don't take your foot off the gas vs New England.

It's sad that AMD has most people expecting failure. Understandable even. I am a huge fan and think that Ryzen will be good but I went Haswell after Phenom2 so ya.. Cautiously optimistic.
 
That's all great and all, but I want to see the thing's balls in gaming. I don't really care about power consumption, since I don't want to game on a phone, I want performance that's [H]. Anything else they can stick in crappy NAS boxes and shit, low-end PCs.
 
I am hopefully enthusiastic about the new cpu.

I will be putting a new box together.

Need to check out Mobo's.

Pick a case.

The whole 9 yards.

Not much I can't max with my current system, of games I currently play.

I expect new games to be more aggressive
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Please don't suck.

Please don't suck.

Please don't suck.
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If it doesn't, and peeps are in the market, and its priced competitively, I think we kinda have a moral obligation to show AMD some love... at least if you're like me and preaching that competition is important. I'm def. going to put my money where my mouth is. *fingers crossed*

Plus just a refreshing change of pace, as I haven't run an AMD processor in aaaaaages.
 
I feel pretty certain the CPU will be pretty good, but I'm more worried about the motherboards.
 
My ivy bride i5 K is humming nicely at 4.2 ghz, but i will buy a ryzen and a vega card, since in my case, they will be faster than what i already have and help them along the way.
 
evilpaul said:
I feel pretty certain the CPU will be pretty good, but I'm more worried about the motherboards.
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As someone not interested in buying Ryzen (AMD came a little late for me here), platform stability and compatibility will be chief considerations after price/performance. Hell, I even bought a few Pentium IV's due to lackluster platform support for AMD CPUs back in the day, just to avoid the mess that was VIA.

The last thing someone needs is driver/motherboard/controller issues on a system on which they rely.
 
According to that, AMD says their 14LPP isn't as dense as Intels 14nm by quite a large margin (37% bigger SRAM size). But at the same time claim denser caches. That can pretty much only be done if they use more power and/or clock lower. The paper also says they got 2 chips running 3.4Ghz with SMT and 8C/16T.

The first page of the paper is quite interesting as well, tho not about AMD. Intels EMB approach that eliminates the costly interposer.

The 2 CCX alone just with cores and cache is as big as a 4 core GT2 chip (6700K, 7700K etc).
 
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I see two new Staff Members: Congrats. (Hey, it's news to me...)

My sig... If Ryzen is good, I'll build a new one and use it to replace the FX8350 build.
 
It would be nifty to finally do another AMD build. I'd do it purely for nostalgia if the CPU is worthy.
 
Ducman69 said:
If it doesn't, and peeps are in the market, and its priced competitively, I think we kinda have a moral obligation to show AMD some love... at least if you're like me and preaching that competition is important. I'm def. going to put my money where my mouth is. *fingers crossed*
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I'm holding off 3 upgrades here at the house for just this reason.
 
Shintai said:
According to that, AMD says their 14LPP isn't as dense as Intels 14nm by quite a large margin (37% bigger SRAM size). But at the same time claim denser caches. That can pretty much only be done if they use more power and/or clock lower. The paper also says they got 2 chips running 3.4Ghz with SMT and 8C/16T.

The first page of the paper is quite interesting as well, tho not about AMD. Intels EMB approach that eliminates the costly interposer.

The 2 CCX alone just with cores and cache is as big as a 4 core GT2 chip (6700K, 7700K etc).
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Dude don't spread misinformation. The Skylake 4C with GT2 is 122 sq mm .

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9505/skylake-cpu-package-analysis

AMD's experience with dense designs like Carrizo has proved very useful. Keller said Zen is a high frequency design and dense design. Both of which have come true. AMD's Zen core is 5.5 sq mm while Skylake is 6.575 sq mm. The larger die size for Intel can be attributed to the 256 bit AVX units while Zen has only 128 bit units. Zen's L3 and L2 cache are also denser than Intel. Intel's so called superior process density has not translated into actual product as has always been the case. We saw this in mobile space with Atom.
 
Competition is good - I don't need it to beat intel's latest and greatest, I just need it to come within 10-15%, and be 20% less expensive. I miss the days when you went Intel for workstations/gaming systems that you ~knew~ needed every single bit of power available to get the job done, and you went AMD when price was more of a concern and you could afford to have the system take a few minutes longer to render, or drop a few fps.
 
Ducman69 said:
If it doesn't, and peeps are in the market, and its priced competitively, I think we kinda have a moral obligation to show AMD some love... at least if you're like me and preaching that competition is important. I'm def. going to put my money where my mouth is. *fingers crossed*

Plus just a refreshing change of pace, as I haven't run an AMD processor in aaaaaages.
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I think pretty well all of us, even the most die hard blue and green, just want more options at the higher end.
 
Looking forward to this and also hope it doesn't suck. Gives me an excuse to build a new machine- I've been running the same 2500k system for too long!
 
So, what does this comparison prove? I'm still at a loss to see why this matters at all
 
Hypergreatthing said:
So, what does this comparison prove? I'm still at a loss to see why this matters at all
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To me it shows that Zen will still have less transistors in each core than Intel. Which should translate to lower IPC although it does show that AMD has narrowed the gap.
 
raghu78 said:
Dude don't spread misinformation. The Skylake 4C with GT2 is 122 sq mm .

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9505/skylake-cpu-package-analysis

AMD's experience with dense designs like Carrizo has proved very useful. Keller said Zen is a high frequency design and dense design. Both of which have come true. AMD's Zen core is 5.5 sq mm while Skylake is 6.575 sq mm. The larger die size for Intel can be attributed to the 256 bit AVX units while Zen has only 128 bit units. Zen's L3 and L2 cache are also denser than Intel. Intel's so called superior process density has not translated into actual product as has always been the case. We saw this in mobile space with Atom.
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How big is a Zeppelin die? 200mm2? Not to mention we have to see how performance in reality turns out.

And saying "dont spread misinformation" coming from you? Oh that's the biggest joke of the year! :ROFLMAO:
 
raghu78 said:
Intel's so called superior process density has not translated into actual product as has always been the case. We saw this in mobile space with Atom.
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It's not 'so called' until AMD proves in mobile applications and in datacenters that their solution exceeds Intel's in terms of performance/watt. You calling it now, based on rumors and predictions, is glaring fanboism, and quite hilarious too. Remember that until these AMD parts are released and tested, Intel has been competing only with themselves- and their sales numbers suggest that, generation to generation, they've been doing quite well in terms of improving performance/watt.

And personally, while I hope AMD *does* bring it in terms of price/performance *and* performance/watt, that last target is much less likely to be hit than the former. Hell, I'd bet that Intel has opted not to make their products as compact as possible just to keep the power usage down!
 
evilpaul said:
I feel pretty certain the CPU will be pretty good, but I'm more worried about the motherboards.
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I was wondering about that too. I want to see more motherboards officially supporting ECC RAM and virtualization technologies. I think I've seen enough RGB-illuminated "gaming" motherboards to last a lifetime.
 
CacaSapo said:
That's all great and all, but I want to see the thing's balls in gaming. I don't really care about power consumption, since I don't want to game on a phone, I want performance that's [H]. Anything else they can stick in crappy NAS boxes and shit, low-end PCs.
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Reduced power consumption is a good thing for performance, because we are now at a point now where CPUs are limited by the amount of power they can draw and the amount of heat they can dissipate. If we can get more performance per watt, then we can get more total performance within the 100-150 watt limits of air-cooling.

Basically, the more energy-efficient it is, the better it should overclock.
 
sir-gold said:
Reduced power consumption is a good thing for performance, because we are now at a point now where CPUs are limited by the amount of power they can draw and the amount of heat they can dissipate. If we can get more performance per watt, then we can get more total performance within the 100-150 watt limits of air-cooling.

Basically, the more energy-efficient it is, the better it should overclock.
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That's generally true, though I recall some 7700k test(s) showing it failing at 5GHz even without the heat issue rearing up.
What I want to see is an AMD chip that is competitive with Intel in real world gaming.
I'm not going to buy if it's cool and doesn't measure up, performance-wise, even if an ice-cube won't melt on it.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
As someone not interested in buying Ryzen (AMD came a little late for me here), platform stability and compatibility will be chief considerations after price/performance. Hell, I even bought a few Pentium IV's due to lackluster platform support for AMD CPUs back in the day, just to avoid the mess that was VIA.

The last thing someone needs is driver/motherboard/controller issues on a system on which they rely.
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Dude, I worked as a bench tech, back then, and VIA chipsets were such pieces of shit, only Cyrix processors (on VIA boards) made me cringe more.
Nvidia managed to make a clusterfuck of things in the chipset world, too. Initial support was ok and I was excited about their product, then they pretty much abandoned it and their audio drivers went to shit.
 
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