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

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AMD Confirms "Zen 4" on 5nm, Other Interesting Tidbits from Q2-2020 Earnings Call
https://www.techpowerup.com/270414/...nteresting-tidbits-from-q2-2020-earnings-call

- TSMC N5 process node;
- AM5 boards;
- DDR5 dual-channel mode per module - quad-channel per dual-slot DDR5-3200 to DDR5-6400;
- PCIe 5 - double the throughput of PCIe 4;
- *probably* double the core count;
- all for 2021 time frame.

 

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There is one very important detail here:


https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-2020-2022-cpu-apu-roadmap-leak-zen-2-3-4-families-unveiled/

So, Vermeer is MSDT CPU with Zen 3, Warhol is MSDT CPU with Zen 3+, Raphael is MSDT big APU with Zen 4 and Navi of some generation.
So, probably AMD is cooking a very bad surprise for us.

What is Warhol? Just another +1-2% ala the Ryzen 3000 XT series?

Vermeer only 15% IPC improvement, Warhol +1-2% if any, Raphael - no core count improvement.

 

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My guess is that AMD want to cover their bases and release a Zen3+ on 7nm for AM4 while also releasing a Zen4 5NM on AM5 as they know people will be hesitant to jump on a new platform and ram prices will be quite high to start with so they can make up extra sales from those looking to upgrade on the large AM4 base.

I don't know what to think. If Raphael has an iGPU, it may be two options - the same chiplet design + iGPU chiplet or a monolithic die all-in-one.
The first option - might turn out to be too power hungry, the second option - the performance improvement won't be there because the core count will remain the same.

If they want to use the iGPU for heterogeneous computing, it's decades late - this was the initial goal of the Fusion project and Llano and still AMD Ryzens don't accelerate anything meaningful (benchmarks, Adobe, etc) with the iGPU.


I read that Vermeer can have 45-watt versions, which if true, might mean that Warhol should go back to the 95-105-watt TDPs.

 

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The XT's were not a new family arch, whereas Warhol seems to be. As @pc-guy points out, it is more likely to be like a 1000 to 2000 jump.

Which, technically, is an IPC improvement in the statistical error margin. 1%.


https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_2700x_review,9.html

There are no details about Rapheal or its core count, so why are you saying no improvement?

I am saying so because the slide above says Raphael will be an APU, which means that we, with 90% certainty or more, can predict that it won't have 16 cores slapped to an iGPU of some Navi type.

 

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DDR5 comes to APU with Zen 3 and PCIe 4 first.

It's possible that first AM5 chipset will support PCIe 4, and future chipset PCIe 5.

AMD’s Next-Gen Rembrandt Ryzen APUs To Feature Enhanced Zen 3 CPU & RDNA 2 GPU Cores on 6nm Process Node, DDR5-5200 Support
https://wccftech.com/amd-rembrandt-...anced-zen-3-cpu-rdna-2-gpu-cores-6nm-process/

 

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Will AMD make the 12-core Zen 4 SKU(s) more affordable and more mainstream?

I mean will we see more choice like a 65-watt 12-core, 95-watt 12-core and >=105-watt SKUs?


Or will Zen 4 be maximum 8-core MSDT APU?

 

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I think we will have 8-16 core APU’s with a large pool of memory by then.

If Raphael with Zen 4 cores is maximum 16-core APU as you say with memory pool, what happens to Threadripper that needs up to at least 64 cores?
It's missing from the roadmap that is in one of the previous posts in this thread.

By the time 6000 come out, I don’t think AMD will be putting more cores on their die. Intel isn’t planning on doing more than 16Cs on their 8big 8little design. So AMD’s 16 full fat cores will annihilate intels in multicore metrics. So they won’t bother.

Ryzen 3 will still be 4c part for a long time, the super budget market is huge. AMD will definitely be putting out dirt cheap 4c parts to compete in the cheapy market sector. OEMs love those SKU as lots of people and companies buy them.

our company still gets 4c intel’s for basic machines.

4-core for Office and Internet browser is just fine.

The problems start while playing games, doing content creation and other more serious multi-tasking or heavier software.
There is software that eats as many cores as you throw at it.

 

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AMD Committed To Offering Massive Perf Per Watt Gains With Next-Gen RDNA 3 Radeon RX GPU Lineup, Will Take Full Advantage of 5nm Process Node For Zen 4
https://wccftech.com/amd-rdna-3-radeon-rx-gpus-and-zen-4-ryzen-cpus-perf-per-watt-gains-5nm/

 

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The problem i have is older games like WoW and Totalwar will only gain from IPC and memory and i know how massive ram is there. So i am sort of wondering do it should i etc.

Really i want 8c 16T and DDR5 usb 4.0 and PCIE 5
0. These are all massive things but 2022 is quite the wait, Is it really that far away? Is there any possibility of 2021 Q4? And another point new boards will mean future proofing on paper Zen4 seems a dream upgrade.

The thing is that according to the roadmap, between Zen 3 which is not even shipped out properly just yet and Zen 4, there will be a middle generation Zen3+ with codename Warhol.
If Warhol keeps the same release cadence of at least 12 months, then expect it by next year the same time, and only after that Zen 4 on the new N5 TSMC process.

 

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Warhol Marvel edition

Sadly though it will probably not have the new board and thus no PCIE 5.0.

The storage throughputs are really important for the servers solutions. This is why next year we will eventually see PCIe 6 released:

PCIe 6.0 Specification Reaches Milestone, Remains on Track for a 2021 Release

 

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But surely will not be here in time for Zen3 or Zen4? Can they swap it now? They already said 2021 for PCIE 5.0. These things take time to come to fruition. Would like to have it though.

This is very strange. They had kept PCIe 3 for agonizing 7! years while now today they want to move to doubling the throughput every two years. I don't see how it will work nor the implementation for normal PC users.

Some later version of Zen 4 can support PCIe 6.

 

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i dont understand the push for PCIe standard even in server space. they still heavily reliant on HDD...it not like all of the sudden they are saturating their boards with a load of fast solid state drives.

Well, in theory the normal PCs can tremendously benefit from faster storage performance. Imagine RAM-class throughput from an SSD. That will make the OS lying on RAM-disk level of performance.
PlayStation 5 has already moved in that direction and will load textures directly from the storage - DirectStorage.

 

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AMD must be very careful with what it plans for the next 2-3 years.
Zen 4 Raphael will most probably compete with Meteor Lake, while Zen 3 will be left to compete with Rocket Lake and Alder Lake.

AMD must be very careful not to prioritise heavy cost reductions with N5 process in the form of shrinking the chiplet and keeping the same core count. Making the individual cores slightly wider and polishing the slower parts of the design won't help neither for future-proofing of the line nor for thermal-density and the related problems with the temperatures.
Nobody is happy to see 80-90°C on Zen 3, if Zen 4 is a shrink, things will likely become even worse.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/ryzen-5800x-87c-in-cinebench.18905709/

Given this - I fully expect the new Zen 4 chiplet, if one exists, at all, to be a 16-core and keep the IPC increases in check in favour of doubling the core count.

If AMD decides to add Navi iGPU and abolish the chiplet design for the consumer line, we will have very serious problems and probably Intel will be back to the top position.

 

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AMD Talks Zen 4 and RDNA 3, Promises to Offer Extremely Competitive Products

"Starting with Zen 4, AMD plans to migrate to the AM5 platform, bringing the new DDR5 and USB 4.0 protocols. The current aim of Zen 4 is to be extremely competitive among competing products and to bring many IPC improvements. Just like Zen 3 used many small advances in cache structures, branch prediction, and pipelines, Zen 4 is aiming to achieve a similar thing with its debut. The state of x86 architecture offers little room for improvement, however, when the advancement is done in many places it adds up quite well, as we could see with 19% IPC improvement of Zen 3 over the previous generation Zen 2 core. As the new core will use TSMC's advanced 5 nm process, there is a possibility to have even more cores found inside CCX/CCD complexes. We are expecting to see Zen 4 sometime close to the end of 2021."

 

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The don't mention anything if the CPUs would keep the chiplet design or will become APUs with integrated Navi CUs on the dies.

They say more cores in the CCX - maybe 6 cores in a CCX, 12 cores total, and bye-bye 16 cores top offering...

 

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Zen 3 has 8 cores in a CCX, so maybe 10 cores? Actually Zen 3 doesn't have CCX's anymore, they are 8 core CCD's, the 5950X has 2 of those = 16 cores, so maybe 20 core top SKU's on mainstream?

Yup, 10 cores is possible and plausible - that would leave space for the Navi iGPU.
I don't believe that they will go - 10-core chiplet + 10-core chiplet + Navi iGPU + cIOD.

10-core SKU will put them in a very bad position against the Alder Lake 16-core/24-thread offers.

 

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For one 4 of Alder Lakes core are Atom Cores, Intel are using tiny cores to get the core count up, those 4 Atom Cores are next to useless for MT workloads but it looks good on marketing slides, it looks like Intel are taking the fight to AMD in core counts. On paper.

If AMD are adding 2 cores to each CCD they will have 20 'Real Cores' and 40 threads, Zen 3 APU's are 8 core 16 thread + iGPU, APU's are different to mainstream Desktop, they are monolithic, they will have as many cores as AMD chose to give them it is not tied to how many cores are in the Zen 4 CCD, it could be 8 again, it could be 10, it could be 12.

Intel are not putting those 12 + 4 Alder Lake CPU's in Laptop's, Rocket Lake are a maximum of 4 in Laptop's.

Alder Lake will include 8 big and 8 little cores. The little cores will be as fast as Skylake per clock. The big cores will have hyper-threading enabled.
8 (16) + 8 (8), or 24 logical processors.

CCD is a separate die - you want to see 8-core CCX + 8-core CCX or a 16-core CCX which effectively will be a 16-core CCD but not more than this.

In the best case, Raphael will be a monolithic die with:
- 16 CPU cores with 2-way multi-threading;
- 1024-CU Navi;
- DDR5-capable;
- PCIe 4-enabled;
- USB 4.0-capable.

 

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Technically in homogenous CPU designs the only reason you ever need or want more than one core is that you've hit a wall on your IPC. e.g. assuming same clocks, 1 core at 2x IPC is always better than 2 cores at 1x IPC. 1 core at 4x IPC is always better than 4 cores at 1x IPC, etc...

You can never achieve 100% IPC increase, it's much easier to add cores and scale on it depending on your scaling performance.

Also, the modern CPU cores are so small, that it is virtually impossible to offer only 1 core.
Except if you want your core to be 150 sq mm which is insane.

 

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Id still take dual core coffee lake with 4gb ram over 8 core bulldozer with 8gb ram

The dual-core will be as slow as snail, the Bulldozer will feel more responsive.

Windows and apps are built to perform better on multi-threaded systems.

 

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Not true as such. Iv done back to back usage with multipe slow cores vs lesser cores which are much more modern and faster. Overall the lower core machine was quicker especially in stuff like loading web pages

Oh, true, true,

I have 6 tabs running right now and the RAM usage is 4.8GB, with 4GB and a dual core CPU you will be dead in the water.