*** AMD "Zen 4" thread (inc AM5/APU discussion) ***

[4K8KW10]

A bad news.

Genoa with Zen 4 will have only 96 cores, which is half way to doubling the core count, with alleged configuration of 12+1 chiplets, and not 8+1.
Which means the core count per chiplet will remain the same miserable 8 cores.
https://www.techpowerup.com/279116/amd-genoa-expected-to-cram-up-to-96-cores-mcm-imagined

 

[muziqaz]

What's so miserable about 8 core chiplet?

 

[HACO]

What's so miserable about 8 core chiplet?

Nothing whatsoever.

 

[tommoT.Striker]

96 cores? Just the way I like it

I wonder what process the IO die will be built on. 50% more cores not to be sniffed at, even with delicious 8-core chipolatas.

 

[4K8KW10]

I wonder what process the IO die will be built on.

If the images in the link are aligned to scale, then the new cIOd looks smaller, so it must be something newer than the GloFo's old 12nm process.

96 cores?

128 is better

What's so miserable about 8 core chiplet?

No progress, we cannot rely only on IPC improvement.
Keep in mid this will directly compete with the 24-thread Alder Lake or even later iterations.
AMD has no good track record of selling processors with more chiplets - 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X is plenty in supply, while the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X doesn't exist in the supply chain.


My personal forecast is that AMD already shows signs of wrong decisions - Bulldozer 2 can come at any time now.

 

[philo-sofa]

My personal forecast is that AMD already shows signs of wrong decisions - Bulldozer 2 can come at any time now.

Perhaps they're making some bad decisions, perhaps not but there's nothing to say they're about to go full Bulldozer 2 on us. Makes about as much sense as saying Intel were due another Netburst right after Conroe had landed.

 

[muziqaz]

No progress? WTF? In past 3 years we have seen unbelievable jump in compute power, you can't expect AMD doubling cores every couple of years. Besides, what you gonna do with 12/16 core chiplet on the desktop side? TSMC is already fabbing at full capacity, I believe it is a smart choice to go smaller chiplets to get more volume out of it. Besides, IPC is not the only improvement AMD can make. You have more mem channels, faster memory, faster clock speeds. With moar cores approach you will hit the wall sooner rather than later

 

[Doobedoo]

If the images in the link are aligned to scale, then the new cIOd looks smaller, so it must be something newer than the GloFo's old 12nm process.



128 is better



No progress, we cannot rely only on IPC improvement.
Keep in mid this will directly compete with the 24-thread Alder Lake or even later iterations.
AMD has no good track record of selling processors with more chiplets - 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X is plenty in supply, while the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X doesn't exist in the supply chain.


My personal forecast is that AMD already shows signs of wrong decisions - Bulldozer 2 can come at any time now.

Alright Dave

 

[humbug]

If the images in the link are aligned to scale, then the new cIOd looks smaller, so it must be something newer than the GloFo's old 12nm process.



128 is better



No progress, we cannot rely only on IPC improvement.
Keep in mid this will directly compete with the 24-thread Alder Lake or even later iterations.
AMD has no good track record of selling processors with more chiplets - 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X is plenty in supply, while the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X doesn't exist in the supply chain.


My personal forecast is that AMD already shows signs of wrong decisions - Bulldozer 2 can come at any time now.

Alder Lake will still have to deal 16 Big cores 32 threads with 30% more performance, no chance.

My personal forecast is that AMD already shows signs of wrong decisions - Bulldozer 2 can come at any time now.

That needs explaining.

 

[Deleted member 209350]

No progress? WTF? In past 3 years we have seen unbelievable jump in compute power, you can't expect AMD doubling cores every couple of years. Besides, what you gonna do with 12/16 core chiplet on the desktop side? TSMC is already fabbing at full capacity, I believe it is a smart choice to go smaller chiplets to get more volume out of it. Besides, IPC is not the only improvement AMD can make. You have more mem channels, faster memory, faster clock speeds. With moar cores approach you will hit the wall sooner rather than later

Honestly! What good is doubling cores constantly going to do anyway when the vast majority of things cant make use of that many cores yet anyway. I think jumping to 96 cores is good enough for now. The main improvements AMD need to focus on is IPC and potentially clock speeds, increasing cores doesnt mean much on its own

 

[humbug]

16 cores is ample for a Gamer / Streamer. 16 cores 32 thread is about the limit of what anyone could want on a mainstream platform, its a good number.

If AMD wanted to they could simply add more CCD's, 24 core 48 thread, 32 core 64 thread. i don't think they will and i don't think its necessary, i was hoping for 10 core CCD's but there we are, its another rout AMD could take, they also have 4 way Hyper Threading in the back pocket.

They have a few ways to up the core / thread count if they wanted to, for now they are just increasing the per core performance which is the right thing to do, that is better than just adding more core / threads, they are doing both adding 32 more cores on the server CPU's with 30% more per core performance is more than enough to keep their massive lead over Intel.

 

[muziqaz]

Even in server space there is bound to be a wall when more cores will not give you any benefits. I'm sure IPC on Zen4 will be increased, add 96 cores, plus more memory bandwidth and you have another nice jump in performance. And why would 96 Genoa cores would have any issues with 24 Alder Lake threads? Oh, he meant AMD Desktop will have to compete with 24 thread Alder Lake
Does intel have anything in the works that can compete with 64 cores of Threadripper, in desktop space? Or do we forget that only 8 cores from Alder lake will be fat cores, the rest of it will be small ones? I doubt that even 5950x will have any issues with 24 thread Alder Lake

 

[HACO]

Honestly! What good is doubling cores constantly going to do anyway when the vast majority of things cant make use of that many cores yet anyway. I think jumping to 96 cores is good enough for now. The main improvements AMD need to focus on is IPC and potentially clock speeds, increasing cores doesnt mean much on its own

Pretty much. At some point just packing extra cores gives diminishing returns even for embarrassingly parallel workloads, the chip will thermal/power throttle and the cores have to slow down, giving you even worse performance than fewer less throttled cores.

These stuff are modelled in very sophisticated ways when they develop the chips and they take all of that into account and eventually decide which potential products are viable or not, but maybe a random user on forums demanding 128-cores knows better

Even in server space there is bound to be a wall when more cores will not give you any benefits. I'm sure IPC on Zen4 will be increased, add 96 cores, plus more memory bandwidth and you have another nice jump in performance. And why would 96 Genoa cores would have any issues with 24 Alder Lake threads? Oh, he meant AMD Desktop will have to compete with 24 thread Alder Lake
Does intel have anything in the works that can compete with 64 cores of Threadripper, in desktop space? Or do we forget that only 8 cores from Alder lake will be fat cores, the rest of it will be small ones? I doubt that even 5950x will have any issues with 24 thread Alder Lake

The guy was concern trolling for AMD, lol.

 

[4K8KW10]

Does intel have anything in the works that can compete with 64 cores of Threadripper, in desktop space? Or do we forget that only 8 cores from Alder lake will be fat cores, the rest of it will be small ones? I doubt that even 5950x will have any issues with 24 thread Alder Lake

You can't buy the 5950X, it is vapourware.
And second - you contradict yourself - the server stations can have millions of cores, if the Threadripper has 64 cores, why can't the desktop have 32?

Zen 4 desktop will be limited to 8 cores and integrated graphics.

 

[humbug]

You can't buy the 5950X, it is vapourware.
And second - you contradict yourself - the server stations can have millions of cores, if the Threadripper has 64 cores, why can't the desktop have 32?

Zen 4 desktop will be limited to 8 cores and integrated graphics.

Its not Vapour ware, i know plenty of people who have one, AMD have restricted (Not cancelled) production of 5900/5950X for now to make the 5600X and 5800X more available, which they are, far more available than any GPU right now.... and Zen 4 is not due for another year, there is no reason to think this shortage (everyone is suffering from) will last for another year.

 

[4K8KW10]

Its not Vapour ware, i know plenty of people who have one, AMD have restricted (Not cancelled) production of 5900/5950X for now to make the 5600X and 5800X more available, which they are, far more available than any GPU right now.... and Zen 4 is not due for another year, there is no reason to think this shortage (everyone is suffering from) will last for another year.

And another mismanagement - they shift the production to units which they cannot sell, when at the same time they desperately need real wafers for products which no one can buy - Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X and Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT.

 

[humbug]

And another mismanagement - they shift the production to units which they cannot sell, when at the same time they desperately need real wafers for products which no one can buy - Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X and Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT.

According to very large online retailers more 5600X are sold than any Intel CPU, the 5800X is right up there too.

 

[timorous]

And another mismanagement - they shift the production to units which they cannot sell, when at the same time they desperately need real wafers for products which no one can buy - Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X and Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT.

Any dies good enough to get into the 5900 and 5950 are probably going into EPYC chips. 5600 and 5800 are lower bins.

Edit. Looking at the die sizes the IO die is smaller and the chiplets themselves are almost the same size. 8c on a more dense node in the same die area suggests some decent core changes (avx-512) and probably a lot more cache.

 

[humbug]

Zen 4 will support AVX-512.

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amds-...pack-up-to-96-cores-400w-ctdp-pcie-5-avx-512/

 

[4K8KW10]

Edit. Looking at the die sizes the IO die is smaller and the chiplets themselves are almost the same size. 8c on a more dense node in the same die area suggests some decent core changes (avx-512) and probably a lot more cache.

Exactly. They chose to invest in fatter cores instead of more cores.
Which means lower system responsiveness in the future.
Future systems will behave better with higher core count, not with fat cores.