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AMD demonstrates Ryzen 9 5900X prototype with 3D V-Cache stack chiplet design

Associate
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Yes, this was a bit unexpected.
Ian over on AT managed to write a detailed enough article within an hour or so:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1672...acked-vcache-technology-2-tbsec-for-15-gaming
Guess he's got a keen interest in packaging tech and AT have covered some of the lead-up to this earlier.

Broadwell 'C' here we come again. Will be interesting to see if anything except games benefits from this.

TES and Fallout might like this a lot. So it is possible that - instead of Bethesda fixing the Creation Engine - CPUs with generous cache might brute force a fix instead.
 
Soldato
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Both AMD and Intel have talked about the use of such stacking,but the bigger issue is going to be cooling each layer sufficiently. Is the extra cache on top of the existing cache locations on the chiplet?? It would make sense of the copper connection layer to be over the cores??
 
Soldato
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I was expecting this to arrive sooner or later but not this soon. I assumed they were planning to do this as some sort of L4 cache on the IO die first but having it directly on the CCX will mean better performance improvements. No mention on thermals and extra power usage though, would've been nice to see the difference.
 
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Not sure what made AMD show this hack job.
We already knew that more cache is more better for games. Why rush and show unfinished solution?

Is it because Zen 4 is getting delayed? So these Zen3+cache CPUs will be the first iteration on AM5?
 
Soldato
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Wow, what a surprise. I was going to wait until Zen 4 and DDR 5 to upgrade but now I won't bother, an unexpected CPU upgrade here I come :cry:.
 
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Aside from winning in gaming benchmarks a bit more, I suspect that part of the reason is that even a limited run (5900XT and 5950XT only, for example) will give them plenty of experience of this for more ambitious ideas later.
For SRAM, thermals are not a major issue but for more ambitious stuff like GPUs, neural etc etc, they might be.
Would give them great versatility and take chiplets to a totally new level. Everyone loves LEGO, right?
 
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AMD's 3D V-Cache seems very impressive and it would be great if the rumored Zen 3 refresh will implement this tech! However such a refresh probably has to come out in this year or it would be too close to the big 5nm Zen 4 launch.
 
Soldato
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Makes sense if Zen 4 is not until Q4 2022, AlderLake is what about 6 Months away and will probably take gaming crown back. So launch 5900XT and 5950XT with this added cache around the same time.
 
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Not sure what made AMD show this hack job.
We already knew that more cache is more better for games. Why rush and show unfinished solution?

Is it because Zen 4 is getting delayed? So these Zen3+cache CPUs will be the first iteration on AM5?

"ready to start production at the end of this year"

Why not give a little sneak peak into what's coming?, what's wrong with that, is that not what we want?

11900K, 16MB L3: 250GB/s
5950X, 64MB L3: 650GB/s
6950X, 192MB L3: 2,000GB/s
 

Deleted member 209350

D

Deleted member 209350

"ready to start production at the end of this year"

Why not give a little sneak peak into what's coming?, what's wrong with that, is that not what we want?

11900K, 16MB L3: 250GB/s
5950X, 64MB L3: 650GB/s
6950X, 192MB L3: 2,000GB/s

Those numbers are so ridiculous, 2TB a second :cry:
 
Associate
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How will this affect the heat output because at the moment it is already very high.
Very high as in very concentrated due to 7nm being, well, dense?

It's cache so not very power hungry but also, the illustrations seemed to indicate it being beside the main die. We shouldn't expect miracles but at least it is not stacked on top of the main CPU.
 
Man of Honour
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Not sure what made AMD show this hack job.
We already knew that more cache is more better for games. Why rush and show unfinished solution?

Is it because Zen 4 is getting delayed? So these Zen3+cache CPUs will be the first iteration on AM5?

May be more to the story than the average performance uplift - AMD has paid a bit of attention to the minimums and latency situation with the 5000 series CPUs and the overall quality of experience in some cases can be vastly better due to higher lows and less variance.
 
Caporegime
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Confirmed with AMD that V-Cache will be coming to Ryzen Zen 3 products, with production at end of year.

https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1399766139769602058?s=19

So this is how they are going to + up Zen 3? By 3D stacking a chunk of Cache on top of it?

Okay.... that's pretty interesting, so the chip AMD demoed wasn't just a prototype for Zen 4, its actually a thing, a Zen 3 thing. that's quite a +.

Edit: you know what, it probably is a prototype for Zen 4, and we get to test the prototype. for a fee.
 
Soldato
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Makes sense if Zen 4 is not until Q4 2022, AlderLake is what about 6 Months away and will probably take gaming crown back. So launch 5900XT and 5950XT with this added cache around the same time.

There is no indication that alderlake will achieve anything unfortunately, and unless I missed it Intel didn't overly talk about it or indeed confirm release period for it.
Maybe I missed this info?
 
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