Caporegime
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Look at Iris Pro, they might do something like that.
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AMD Launches Three Kaveri APU SKUs in February 2014 – Feature Set For A10 and A8 APUs Detailed
- Thread starter Boomstick777
- Start date
Look at Iris Pro, they might do something like that.
....And you won't get 2-3GB GDDR memory on-die. It's too big. Potentially GDDR memory slots on a mobo, but it would be messy and rely on memory manufacturers producing GDDR dimms. Can't see it gaining traction.
DDR4 gives extra bandwidth, but even at 4000mhz still gives you less than the bandwidth on a GDDR5 7750 or 7770, unless you go tri or quad-band (expensive)
Caporegime
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The dies shots of Kaveri indicate the memory controller has additional functionality which is not being used - it looks like it is quad channel.
Isn't it more likely to have been GDDR5 support? the idea of GDDR use hitting mainsteam was looking possible earlier in the development cycle - could be a relic from that. Just can't see AMD lining up Quad channel on a sub-£150 range of CPUs
Alternatively, perhaps there actually is functionality to allow for an on-package memory die to be added, as with IrisPro?
Alternatively, perhaps there actually is functionality to allow for an on-package memory die to be added, as with IrisPro?
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If you're like everyone else who only looks at a cpu in the traditional way then yes. If you look at cpu-gpu compute, then those steamroller cores can talk to the gcn cores and in a hsa environment can provide huge opencl performance that no traditional cpu can even get close to.
The 45 W ones seem to be best price/performance in today's programs.
The CPU performance is decent, but slower than Haswell. We can't judge the performance of the whole chip until more OpenCL 2.0 programs come out, but we could see massive performance improvements when they do. The only HSA benchmark out right now is at the bottom of this page (and it's 5x faster than the Intel i5).
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I'm referring more to the market or people who would be interested in or buy a kaveri.
It seems to me that the higher end kaveri APU's don't provide enough extra all round horse power cpu and gpu to warrant buying them over on of the upper models.
Once you get to something like A10-7850K it seems you would be much better off spending a bit more for a more powerful CPU and a lower end GPU.
Laptop's on the other hand seem to be the one that will benefit most from kaveri and they will probably use the 45W models.
From your other post you state ''after looking at all the benchmarks etc. that kaveri's CPU (streamroller core) performance is a bit of a flop and the only worth while kaveri apu's are the 45W models?''
You are right about the lower wattage Kaveris not being far behind the higher performance Kaveris, I agree. But you aren't looking at what an apu essentially can do. Hence you are still ignoring the hsa and benefits of cpu-gpu compute, because you mention once you hit 7850k level you might aswell buy a powerful cpu and a lower end gpu.
That would only work out if your intention is to only game.
If you buy a haswell dual core or haswell i3 and a discreet card you can gain a better gaming experience, but once again you're not looking at the whole point of an apu and its merits. If Kaveri had the gddr5 onboard, then you wouldn't need an intel or amd am3 and a discreet gpu for budget gaming, furthermore when software makes use of the hsa architecture the apu will provide better performance than the haswell i3/dual core.
Yeah, you're right. I am mainly looking at this from a gaming perspective, especially as kaveri's GPU is pretty strong and gaming capable, but once you add a dedicated card into the mix as well then it appears to lose it's strengths.
Which as you say is largely done to the lack of HSA at the moment that would help with regards to gaming.
I am however looking forward to much greater implementation of HSA and the possibility of Floating point calculations that a CPU usually does when playing in games etc being off loaded onto the APU's GPU side.
Also does anyone know how these APU's might perform with regards to running virtual machines.
As it stands though, currently until Hsa advances and Amd innovate in the memory bandwidth situation, Kaveri and it's lower power offerings seem ideal for htpc / laptops. You are right 7850k is too pricey for not a lot of gain over lesser kaveris.
Exactly. I am rather looking forward to seeing ultrabooks coming out with a 45W kaveri APU in them. Should make for a great mobile workhorse as well as for some light gaming duties.
Does anyone know when the Kaveri refresh with DDR4 support is due? Q3 or Q4 this year?
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Prices starting to drop now, makes the 7850k more appealing. Once they hit 5800K/6800K level, I would say it's a nice upgrade option.
Also, if you look at the 7850K as kind of a base line for performance, and future APU's obviously will improve, within the next 1 or 2 gens I think we will finally see an APU that can say gaming at 1080P is possible, very impressive when it happens. AMD's long term goal is a decent one.
Also, if you look at the 7850K as kind of a base line for performance, and future APU's obviously will improve, within the next 1 or 2 gens I think we will finally see an APU that can say gaming at 1080P is possible, very impressive when it happens. AMD's long term goal is a decent one.
So are the steamroller cores in kaveri now considered full proper cores rather than the cores in pile driver were each core shared a FPU with another core (or something like that).
I'm just curious as I would have thought that change would provide a significant boost to kaveri's cpu based floating point performance.
Also regarding price, I hadn't actually realized how close the A10-7850K's price was to that was an FX-8350. (yes I know they are different classes of processor, but still I thought the FX-8350 would have been a good bit more expensive/kaveri a good bit cheaper.)
I'm just curious as I would have thought that change would provide a significant boost to kaveri's cpu based floating point performance.
Also regarding price, I hadn't actually realized how close the A10-7850K's price was to that was an FX-8350. (yes I know they are different classes of processor, but still I thought the FX-8350 would have been a good bit more expensive/kaveri a good bit cheaper.)
Nope, AMD seem to be sticking with the Bulldozer-like architecture for now (2 modules each containing 2 integer and 1 floating point unit), as they're hoping parallel/floating point workloads will be sent to the GPU portion (where 80% of the power is) as soon as the software has been updated. This is part of the reason why it looks like an i3 in floating point tests.
Carrizo (Excavator cores) is another FM2+ part.
45w and 65w SKU's (desktop parts), so 20nm probably.
I don't think we'll see DDR4 on these until well into 2015.
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Anandtech;
AMD Kaveri Docs Reference Quad-Channel Memory Interface, GDDR5 Option
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7702/...nce-quadchannel-memory-interface-gddr5-option
Looks like we were both right
