*** AMD "Zen" thread (inc AM4/APU discussion) ***

[jigger]

Ryzen CPU is only the first salvo - its more about getting the core done properly. If AMD does well against even £1000 Intel CPUs,it really lifts their status for the second salvo,the Ryzen APUs.

The Ryzen APU will be another kettle of fish - outside the eDRAM parts,AMD still has the edge using DDR3 and much lower IPC cores in any games. Imagine a Ryzen APU which is 4C/8T and with a Polaris or Vega based IGP??

Combine that with the fact Ryzen is an SOC,so that means they can use relatively cheap motherboards,it has potential to be something HP/Dell will want to use,even in a laptop.

Pretty much how I see this. Ryzen is just the tip of a potentially huge iceberg for the industry. Ryzen APU's with a 50/50 CPU to GPU ratio + HBM can support a very large chunks of the markets that currently require parts from many different vendors. They would even open new markets. Upgradable pocket sized gaming PC's, full fat servers/workstations the size of a 2 bay enclosure.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Also eDRAM Intel parts are only few and far between in the real world, but looking at how AMD are looking at HBM and the nvme expansion thing on their GPUs i really think AMD are looking to compete with the eDRAM parts

Looking at rumoured performance and pricing, it says to me AMD want to smash Intel, not just compete! And realistically, a Zen 4c8t+Polaris/VEGA APU decently clocked with a GPU along the lines of an RX460 should do just that, and definitely make an ideal AIO spec for even some gamers.

 

[SiDeards73]

Quite scary actually that a Ryzen / Vega APU would be a monster, can imagine in the not to distance future being able to say "Here have an Xbox Scorpio with a keyboard and screen in an ultrathin housing" type of deal

 

[SiDeards73]

Looking at rumoured performance and pricing, it says to me AMD want to smash Intel, not just compete! And realistically, a Zen 4c8t+Polaris APU decently clocked with a GPU along the lines of an RX460 should do just that, and definitely make an ideal AIO spec for even some gamers.

That would also strip money from Nvidia's pockets, people opting for the low end Nvidia cards like the 1050 etc wouldnt even bother when you had similar or better performance already in your APU.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Pretty much how I see this. Ryzen is just the tip of a potentially huge iceberg for the industry. Ryzen APU's with a 50/50 CPU to GPU ratio + HBM can support a very large chunks of the markets that currently require parts from many different vendors. They would even open new markets. Upgradable pocket sized gaming PC's, full fat servers/workstations the size of a 2 bay enclosure.

Consider this - there is potential for the Ryzen APU to have L3 cache,since they are probably using the CCX as a semi-custom building block.

In the past AMD has had to reduce cache amount on the APUs which has not helped the CPU side of things.

 

[Sargatanas2511]

Is there potential to add HBM as a kind of edRAM onto the cpu? Potentially as a L4 cache of sorts.

 

[Apache14]

Quite scary actually that a Ryzen / Vega APU would be a monster, can imagine in the not to distance future being able to say "Here have an Xbox Scorpio with a keyboard and screen in an ultrathin housing" type of deal

There is a fair chance that Scorpio is ZEN based (and possibly Vega, however more likely custom Polaris). Would make sense MS waiting until later this year to announce it

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

OK,the hype tram is going into overtime now:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/summit-ridge-zen-benchmarks.2482739/page-229#post-38743777

It appears that 6C/12T CPU which was tested in CPU-Z is probably a 65W TDP model.

 

[d_brennen]

Is there potential to add HBM as a kind of edRAM onto the cpu? Potentially as a L4 cache of sorts.

Yep this is the goal. I suspect the purchase of SeaMicro way back in 2012 was lining this up (Infinity Fabric, CPU+GPU+Memory+Southbridge on SoC). I personally expect to see this at 7nm though, perhaps next year on 14nm in server/embedded APUs...

 

[ubersonic]

Is there potential to add HBM as a kind of edRAM onto the cpu? Potentially as a L4 cache of sorts.

God can you imagine if Intel cracked that: "would you like the 4GB i7, the 8GB i7 or for three kidneys you can have the 16GB i7! Nono you can't use additional memory modules, that would be communist".

 

[Sargatanas2511]

God can you imagine if Intel cracked that: "would you like the 4GB i7, the 8GB i7 or for three kidneys you can have the 16GB i7! Nono you can't use additional memory modules, that would be communist".

It could be a monstrous performer though, 8GB of ultra fast data access. onboard graphics could actually be viable!

 

[jigger]

OK,the hype tram is going into overtime now:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/summit-ridge-zen-benchmarks.2482739/page-229#post-38743777

It appears that 6C/12T CPU which was tested in CPU-Z is probably a 65W TDP model.

Huge potential for a chip like this in the NAS market.

 

[harney]

I am hoping for some AMD magic source

The only thing I might say is, try and get the same version of cpu-z incase there is any difference from one version to another. But the scores look good, in terms of single thread vs multithread score, that Zen result looks like it scales incredibly. Where your 5820k and TaKen's 2500k both get less than single thread x core count, the Zen gets over single thread x core count. Both the 5820k and Zen have HT so it should be 12 threads a piece but the Zen is certainly getting better scaling.


From looking at a couple cpu-z results, a 6700k and therefore 7700k, seems to get around 2500/10000 score at basically 5ghz.


https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/430106-post-your-cpu-z-bench-scores/?page=5

If you scroll down there is a list of results. 4790k @ 4.85Ghz 2193/9525, 6700k @ 4Ghz 2059/8727, 6700@ 3.4Ghz 1830/7840, 6600 @ 3.3Ghz 1823/?.

So if the benchmark ran on that Zen at around 3.3Ghz, it has (in this benchmark) extremely competitive single thread and genuinely excellent MT scaling. Even if it's boosting to around 3.5Ghz on all cores, it's still extremely good performance.

That list of results shows better MT scaling on the 4970/6700's than the 5820k results above though.

4790k @4.6 here
getting
ST 2095
MT 8541

 

[DragonQ]

If those leaks prove to be accurate, then IPC seems better than anybody was daring hope.

Pretty much all of the benchmarks so far show this. I think only people who remember Bulldozer are still being sceptical...so far it looks like Ryzen will be slightly better than Kaby Lake in IPC overall, but we still haven't seen typical overclocking headroom or gaming performance yet.

 

[silversurfer]

So from that, I'm still not sure whether the PlayReady 3.0 needs to be in the CPU as well, or just the GPU (which also needs to support 10-bit HEVC).

It needs a driver for whatever hardware is there, I dont think it needs think it needs more then one instance. Not all 4K screens do 10 bit? so its pretty cutting edge then

https://i.imgur.com/SfFIl57.jpg
I think zen is all about overclocking and that being so uncapped compared to how Intel had a throttle hold on everything for so long, its good not to have a monopoly. At stock thats nice but nothing ground breaking seems like [6 cores only thats pretty good actually]

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Pretty much all of the benchmarks so far show this. I think only people who remember Bulldozer are still being sceptical...so far it looks like Ryzen will be slightly better than Kaby Lake in IPC overall, but we still haven't seen typical overclocking headroom or gaming performance yet.

CPC tested a whole bunch of games and it seemed closer to BW-E level in the ones they tested,and 4 of the 6 tested seem to not scale well with more cores or use SMT well. If AMD can get anywhere near that level of IPC for gaming on average,Ryzen is going to be strong for gaming.

 

[humbug]

Assuming Performance and Price.... any else get the impression AMD are going for Intel's jugular here? with performance levels similar they are still £100's cheaper even at Intel's lower mainstream level.

Its like revenge, no respect for Intel's decade long pricing strategy, AMD are just going to walk up to punch Intel in the face and then tear-down established semi conductor market norms.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I think one thing we have to take from the older benches/info coming out, is that Zen seems to be like the older AMD designs (AMD64/Athlon XP yo!) or even some Intel ones in that they actually do benefit from decent RAM/tighter timings in a reasonable way. Given the early revisions of the chips were meant to have awful IMCs and other issues that have been resolved in newer spins/retail chips, then bear in mind the older CPC benches may also be slightly out of date now; performance may have gone up!

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Assuming Performance and Price.... any else get the impression AMD are going for Intel's jugular here? with performance levels similar they are still £100's cheaper even at Intel's lower mainstream level.

Its like revenge, no respect for Intel's decade long pricing strategy, AMD are just going to walk up to punch Intel in the face and then tear-down established semi conductor market norms.

Yeah...love it, this is why we have needed AMD to be competitive for some time, and AMD know it. They know if they come out guns blazing they will win a lot of kudos from the slightly older crowd who remember AMD64 v P4 etc.
Keller...well he seems to have done it again, even at BW IPC levels, these chips are looking smoking for the $ compared to what Intel have on the market.

If even half of the details we've seen recently are true, then AMD have exceeded everyone's expectations, and their engineers have much to be proud of. Hopefully they will maintain this in their refreshes etc.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The CPC CPU had slightly buggy SMT and was running an AMD Fury X before the ReLive drivers,so was probably a worse case scenario,especially with some of the games they used too.

But even at Haswell level IPC for gaming,the Intel £100 to £250 range is going to look really wonky especially if there are 4C and 4C/8T Ryzen CPUs under £200.