AMD to launch 12nm Ryzen in February 2018

BongoHunter · 29 Sep 2017 at 15:15

d_brennen said:
Aside from the business case of selling a new chipset

I am sure AM4 3xx is here for a while though, AMD can't afford the bad press as well as Intel at the moment.

I dont think AMD have much of a stake in the chipsets and outsource it to ASMedia or some such, so they dont have the same motivation for new chipsets like chipzilla

d_brennen · 29 Sep 2017 at 16:10

BongoHunter said:
I dont think AMD have much of a stake in the chipsets and outsource it to ASMedia or some such, so they dont have the same motivation for new chipsets like chipzilla

Intel need to keep their old fabs full of something at least

humbug · 29 Sep 2017 at 16:48

DragonQ said:
Surely the only way more PCIe lanes on the chipset would be useful is if the new CPUs actually have more PCIe lanes to give to the chipset in the first place....and we don't know if that'll be the case yet. I'm thinking it's not very likely.

I can't make sense of this.
How many PCIe lanes the Chip-Set has is not dependant on how many the CPU gives it, it doesn't work like that, the Chip-Sets simply behaves as the middle man between IO and the CPU, the CPU is not the determinate of how many PICe lanes the Chip-Set has.

jigger · 29 Sep 2017 at 16:50

BongoHunter said:
I dont think AMD have much of a stake in the chipsets and outsource it to ASMedia or some such, so they dont have the same motivation for new chipsets like chipzilla

I think Intel would probably make more money from AMD motherboards.

smilingcrow · 29 Sep 2017 at 19:02

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
There is a lot people seem to be unaware off regarding what has been known about Ryzen for years,which can easily been found out about:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1117...review-a-deep-dive-on-1800x-1700x-and-1700/13

What you don't seem to remember is that Ryzen is the third generation of AMD AM socket CPUs to be an SOC after Carrizo/Bristol Ridge and Kabini.

You've missed the context of my post. I stated that the Ryzen CPUs don't have enough I/O alone for a mid level desktop board let alone a high end one which is why the retail boards come with chipsets and why AMD make a range of them available.
They just about have enough I/O for a high end laptop although that may be touch and go for something like a high end Alienware.

The SoC approach is more significant for mobile and possibly for the desktop APUs but for Ryzen I'm not sure it matters either way.

jigger · 29 Sep 2017 at 19:14

smilingcrow said:
You've missed the context of my post. I stated that the Ryzen CPUs don't have enough I/O alone for a mid level desktop board let alone a high end one which is why the retail boards come with chipsets and why AMD make a range of them available.
They just about have enough I/O for a high end laptop although that may be touch and go for something like a high end Alienware.

The SoC approach is more significant for mobile and possibly for the desktop APUs but for Ryzen I'm not sure it matters either way.

Depends what you mean by high end desktop. You get 16 lanes of PCIE, 4 SATA, M.2, 4 USB 3.1 and a few other bits. That would cover most desktop setups comfortably.

Martini1991 · 29 Sep 2017 at 19:30

humbug said:
I can't make sense of this.
How many PCIe lanes the Chip-Set has is not dependant on how many the CPU gives it, it doesn't work like that, the Chip-Sets simply behaves as the middle man between IO and the CPU, the CPU is not the determinate of how many PICe lanes the Chip-Set has.

Isn't it with more stuff being on the CPU rather than the motherboard making that the case? The amount of lanes are dependant on the CPU. Hence why IvyB was PCI-E 3.0 and SandyB was PCI-E 2.0 on the same motherboard.

Whereas on 990FX the lanes were dependant on the chipset.

smilingcrow · 29 Sep 2017 at 21:53

jigger said:
Depends what you mean by high end desktop. You get 16 lanes of PCIE, 4 SATA, M.2, 4 USB 3.1 and a few other bits. That would cover most desktop setups comfortably.

1 of PCIe 3.0 x16
4 of USB 3.1 Gen 1
1 of PCIe 2.0 x4 - configurable as either:
A) 2 SATA + 1 NVMe PCIe 2.0 x2 or
B) 2 SATA + x2 PCIe 2.0 or
C) 1 NVMe PCIe 2.0 x4

Plus I forgot the PCIe 3.0 x4 that can be utilised as it's not being used to connect to a chipset, although not sure how that can be configured!

Even mITX systems offer more than that but it's okay for a grandparent box.

jigger · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:02

smilingcrow said:
1 of PCIe 3.0 x16
4 of USB 3.1 Gen 1
1 of PCIe 2.0 x4 - configurable as either:
A) 2 SATA + 1 NVMe PCIe 2.0 x2 or
B) 2 SATA + x2 PCIe 2.0 or
C) 1 NVMe PCIe 2.0 x4

Plus I forgot the PCIe 3.0 x4 that can be utilised as it's not being used to connect to a chipset, although not sure how that can be configured!

Even mITX systems offer more than that but it's okay for a grandparent box.

I've built and happily used systems with less. Forgot about the DMI lanes and I think you can split the 16 lanes up. I also think you get some USB 2 natively.

BongoHunter · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:31

Some of these posts are very confusing with regard to Lane count and what it means.

I think is worth mentioning that both intel and AMD are in a very similar boat with lane counts in the mid range on the new lineups, the key difference being the width of the link from the chipser to the CPU.

For example, both AMD R7 and i7-8700* CPUs have "only" 16 lanes form the CPU, and go after roughly the same midrange consumers.

smilingcrow · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:37

jigger said:
I've built and happily used systems with less. Forgot about the DMI lanes and I think you can split the 16 lanes up. I also think you get some USB 2 natively.

The 16 lanes are either 1x 16 or 2x 8.
There are no USB 2.0 ports on the CPU.
It's doable but clearly limited which is why AMD has multiple chipsets and board makers use them.
OEM systems will see systems without especially for smaller form factors.

It's all rather a moot point as Ryzen is hardly a SoC as it requires a GPU.

BongoHunter · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:41

smilingcrow said:
The 16 lanes are either 1x 16 or 2x 8.
There are no USB 2.0 ports on the CPU.
It's doable but clearly limited which is why AMD has multiple chipsets and board makers use them.
OEM systems will see systems without especially for smaller form factors.

It's all rather a moot point as Ryzen is hardly a SoC as it requires a GPU.

I'm not sure what your getting at, aren't Intel and AMD very similar in this regard?

smilingcrow · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:48

BongoHunter said:
I'm not sure what your getting at, aren't Intel and AMD very similar in this regard?

If you are interested read back and the context hopefully will become clear.

DragonQ · 29 Sep 2017 at 22:49

humbug said:
I can't make sense of this.
How many PCIe lanes the Chip-Set has is not dependant on how many the CPU gives it, it doesn't work like that, the Chip-Sets simply behaves as the middle man between IO and the CPU, the CPU is not the determinate of how many PICe lanes the Chip-Set has.

What kind of things are you hoping to use PCIe lanes for that don't have to communicate with the CPU? Ryzen currently has a 4x 3.0 link between the CPU and the chipset, so everything connected via the chipset is bottlenecked by this link. That's why you're meant to put a GPU into a specific slot, for example, because it's one directly linked to the CPU not via this bottleneck. The chipset can have 100 PCIe lanes but they'd still be bottlenecked by the 4x link.

I'm pretty sure Ryzen has 16x for GPU, 4x for NVMe/SATA (most motherboards have one 4x NVMe slot I believe), and 4x for chipset (including USB and other SATA). It also has 4x USB 3.1 ports that are separate to the other 24 PCIe lanes, at least according to this:

humbug · 30 Sep 2017 at 16:21

Martini1991 said:
Isn't it with more stuff being on the CPU rather than the motherboard making that the case? The amount of lanes are dependant on the CPU. Hence why IvyB was PCI-E 3.0 and SandyB was PCI-E 2.0 on the same motherboard.

Whereas on 990FX the lanes were dependant on the chipset.

Yes, SandyB and IvyB are also Socket On Chip, they are PCI-E 2.0 and PCI-E 3.0 respectively because thats what was on the CPU.

Bulldozer and Vishera were not SOC, the PCEe controller was on the Chip-Set.

Ryzen has everything on the CPU, it doesn't actually need a Chip-Set at all, in fact Naples (the server platform based on Ryzen EPYC) does not have a Chip-Set.
Whatever Chip-Set AM4 has, (not all of them do have one) is an extra, its an add-on not even made by AMD.

Ryzen has 32 PCIe 3 lanes on the CPU its self, Threadripper has 64, EPYC 128....

humbug · 30 Sep 2017 at 17:50

DragonQ said:
What kind of things are you hoping to use PCIe lanes for that don't have to communicate with the CPU? Ryzen currently has a 4x 3.0 link between the CPU and the chipset, so everything connected via the chipset is bottlenecked by this link. That's why you're meant to put a GPU into a specific slot, for example, because it's one directly linked to the CPU not via this bottleneck. The chipset can have 100 PCIe lanes but they'd still be bottlenecked by the 4x link.

I'm pretty sure Ryzen has 16x for GPU, 4x for NVMe/SATA (most motherboards have one 4x NVMe slot I believe), and 4x for chipset (including USB and other SATA). It also has 4x USB 3.1 ports that are separate to the other 24 PCIe lanes, at least according to this:

Right, this slide also illustrates what i was saying before and what others have been saying about Chip-Set changes being irrelevant to the socket, because with Ryzen everything critical is on the CPU, like i said the Chip-Set is an add-on.

Remember when DDR2 AM2+ you could upgrade to a DDR3 AM3 Socket CPU like the Phenom II? it would simply run in DDR2 mode on the older board.

So hypothetically a DDR5 Ryzen 3 CPU in its self would not spell the end the AM4 boards you are running now because the memory controller is entirely on the CPU, it is independent from the Chip-Set, it will not care as long as the Ryzen 3 CPU also has a DDR4 IMC, in the same way a Phenom II had both DDR2 and DDR3 IMC's.

Same with a hypothetical PCIe 4......

I'm not saying this is what they will do, tho they have in the past.

If we aren't getting DDR5 and PCEIe 4 in the next couple or few years there really is no reason to change the Motherboard at all.

AMD do not make Chip-Set any more, they have moved on to putting everything the CPU needs to function on the CPU, as that diagram shows, the Chip-Set on AM4 is a Motherboard vendors choice, like offering Sata Raid, PCIe 2, USB 2, stuff to fill-out the rear IO a bit more....

If Motherboard vendors want to keep you buying a new one with every new Ryzen launch its upto them to entice you in with with features independent from whats already on the CPU, if ASmeadia want to sell more Chip-Set's then they can offer up better and more IO.

If just want the new CPU but are perfectly happy with your existing board then there is no need to change it.

AMD have engineered themselves into a position where Motherboard vendors have to work to entice you in.

DragonQ · 30 Sep 2017 at 17:53

humbug said:
If just want the new CPU but are perfectly happy with your existing board then there is no need to change it.

I agree. I am not sure what they are possibly going to offer with X470 or whatever it ends up being called but I bet it won't be much, and certainly not a reason to upgrade from X370.

Mercutio · 1 Oct 2017 at 14:50

This... is... almost certainly a finally worthy upgrade path. Come March, 7 years with this 2600k. Looking forward to moving on.

muon · 1 Oct 2017 at 20:17

So 12 months after original Ryzen release (brand new architecture) we get a die shrink and clock boost.

Intel has been sleeping for too long.

This may be as strong as 65nm Conroe release and then the 45nm Penryn shrink. The original Intel releases that crushed AMD.

smilingcrow · 1 Oct 2017 at 21:17

humbug said:
Yes, SandyB and IvyB are also Socket On Chip, they are PCI-E 2.0 and PCI-E 3.0 respectively because thats what was on the CPU.
Bulldozer and Vishera were not SOC, the PCEe controller was on the Chip-Set.
Ryzen has everything on the CPU, it doesn't actually need a Chip-Set at all, in fact Naples (the server platform based on Ryzen EPYC) does not have a Chip-Set.

A SoC also needs to have integrated graphics otherwise it is dependent on an external graphics chip so is not a SoC.

humbug said:
Whatever Chip-Set AM4 has, (not all of them do have one) is an extra, its an add-on not even made by AMD.
Ryzen has 32 PCIe 3 lanes on the CPU its self, Threadripper has 64, EPYC 128....

The convention is to quote the number of lanes that are actually accessible and exclude those that are tied up due to being reserved for other purposes.
Ryzen has 24 accessible lanes 4 of which are used to connect to a chipset which is usually present leaving it 20 lanes.