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

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 2 Jun 2016 at 19:35

Oops!!

AlamoX · 2 Jun 2016 at 19:51

AMD Confirms Key "Summit Ridge" Specs

AMD CEO Lisa Su, speaking at the company's Computex reveal held up the most important CPU product for the company, the new eight-core "Summit Ridge" processor. A posterboy of the company's new "Zen" micro-architecture, "Summit Ridge" is an eight-core processor with SMT enabling 16 threads for the OS to deal with, a massive 40% IPC increase over the current "Excavator" architecture, and a new platform based around the AM4 socket.

The AM4 socket sees AMD completely relocate the core-logic (chipset) to the processor's die. Socket AM4 motherboards won't have any chipset on them. This also means that the processor has an integrated PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex, besides the DDR4 integrated memory controller. With the chipset being completely integrated, connectivity such as USB and SATA will be routed out of the processor. The AM4 socket is shared with another kind of products, the "Bristol Ridge" APU, which features "Excavator" CPU cores and a 512-SP GCN 1.2 iGPU.

Source : techpowerup

so what do you think, is this good or bad ? having that many features integrated to the chip itself rather than being on the mobo.

DragonQ · 2 Jun 2016 at 20:13

Generally good but does it mean motherboards manufacturers can't add their own USB or PCIe lanes, for example?

Gerard · 2 Jun 2016 at 20:20

Orangey said:
Actually it's a redesign of Bulldozer shopped to AMD by Jim Keller.

Since when? Everything I've read on it says its a total ground up design. Obviously Jim Keller was on board for a lot of it, but to say its just a reworked bulldozer?

This is the first time in a very long time that we engineers have been given the total freedom to build a processor from scratch and do the best we can do. It is a multi-year project with a really large team. It's like a marathon effort with some sprints in the middle. The team is working very hard, but they can see the finish line. I guarantee that it will deliver a huge improvement in performance and power consumption over the previous generation. ”
— Suzanne Plummer, Zen team leader, on September 19th, 2015

humbug · 3 Jun 2016 at 01:17

Orangey said:
Actually it's a redesign of Bulldozer shopped to AMD by Jim Keller.

Excavator, yes, Zen is a ground up redesign, its is Kellers first back at AMD.

Orcvader · 3 Jun 2016 at 09:26

If motherboard manufacturers wants extra USB, SATA ports, etc. they can use the Promontory chip: https://benchlife.info/amd-summit-ridge-platform-structure-confirm-05062015/

And this is apparently a HP OEM AM4 board:

h4rm0ny · 3 Jun 2016 at 09:58

Orcvader said:
If motherboard manufacturers wants extra USB, SATA ports, etc. they can use the Promontory chip: https://benchlife.info/amd-summit-ridge-platform-structure-confirm-05062015/

And this is apparently a HP OEM AM4 board:

Nice find. They're really sticking to their mountain naming scheme, huh?

So a promontory chip is like a PCI-e extender board, essentially?

EDIT: Crap! Is that dual-channel memory I see in the diagram? I hope that wont be for all Zen chips. I want quad-channel minimum.

Orcvader · 3 Jun 2016 at 11:11

It's an old picture from last year so there's a chance AMD may have changed that, but for the normal consumer there's still not much real life performance difference beyond dual channel.

Vish Petrol · 3 Jun 2016 at 11:49

Has there been any update on when the am4 boards will be released then?

h4rm0ny · 3 Jun 2016 at 12:01

Orcvader said:
It's an old picture from last year so there's a chance AMD may have changed that, but for the normal consumer there's still not much real life performance difference beyond dual channel.

Agreed-ish. But I'm not a normal user. I do programming and DB work as a consultant sometimes and quad-channel is desirable to me. It also makes a difference with some graphics work so I would hate to see Zen held back from what it could be by this.

h4rm0ny · 3 Jun 2016 at 12:04

Vish Petrol said:
Has there been any update on when the am4 boards will be released then?

Well it will have to be available for Bristol Ridge and that's launched for mobile devices. So I guess if we get a launch date for Bristol Ridge on the desktop it'll come with them. I don't think anyone knows when we'll see Bristol Ridge on the desktop, though.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:26

First Bristol Ridge based laptop available now with the highest end SKU:

http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-envy-x360---15z-touch laptop-t5y05av-1

Looks like a great spec apart from one little thing:

8GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM (1 x 8GB)

Try to customise the laptop and you can't add another one.

FAIL!!

It seems it only has one RAM slot acccording to this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4m7rvx/just_bought_3_hp_envy_x360_15z_touch_laptops/

I just got off chat support and they told me that this computer only has 1 RAM slot, and that the RAM is not user-upgradeable. I'd imagine the same thing applies to the HD.

Edit!!

The OP of that thread said they would check to see if the laptop has a free RAM slot.

h4rm0ny · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:31

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
First Bristol Ridge based laptop available now with the highest end SKU:

http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-envy-x360---15z-touch laptop-t5y05av-1

Looks like a great spec apart from one little thing:

Try to customise the laptop and you can't add another one.

FAIL!!

It seems it only has one RAM slot acccording to this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4m7rvx/just_bought_3_hp_envy_x360_15z_touch_laptops/

That sucks. AMD have eternally had problems with getting laptop manufacturers to give their chips a decent home. Anandtech did an extremely good article on it a while back (link) with Carrizo and how it was held back. The lack of OEMs willing to give it a dual-channel set up was a big factor in this, too. So it looks like the cycle perpetuates yet again.

Hopefully there are some better Bristol Ridge laptops on their way.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:32

h4rm0ny said:
That sucks. AMD have eternally had problems with getting laptop manufacturers to give their chips a decent home. Anandtech did an extremely good article on it a while back (link) with Carrizo and how it was held back. The lack of OEMs willing to give it a dual-channel set up was a big factor in this, too. So it looks like the cycle perpetuates yet again.

Hopefully there are some better Bristol Ridge laptops on their way.

Chap said he would check the laptop to see if it has another RAM slot.

humbug · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:37

Don't they not understand that with only one RAM slot its not running in Dual / Quad channel and there in performance gimped?

Martini1991 · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:41

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bristol Ridge isn't Zen is it?

Now I'm sure we've had a similar situation before, but are people expecting Zen to hit this year, given they've just launched Bristol Ridge? I really can't see it (Yet the entire Internet is telling me Zen's Q3 2016, which starts in 27 days.)

jigger · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:44

Summit Ridge is Zen.

Martini1991 · 3 Jun 2016 at 18:46

jigger said:
Summit Ridge is Zen.

I know that much (I was being a bit tongue in cheek about Cat posting none Zen APU launch)

At any rate, Bristol Ridge is in its "launch" phase, AMD launching Zen this year now seems rather foreign to me. Do people still expect its launch this year?

humbug · 3 Jun 2016 at 19:07

Martini1991 said:
I know that much (I was being a bit tongue in cheek about Cat posting none Zen APU launch)

At any rate, Bristol Ridge is in its "launch" phase, AMD launching Zen this year now seems rather foreign to me. Do people still expect its launch this year?

I'm thinking Q1 2017, which suits me.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 3 Jun 2016 at 19:33

AMD is also going to present more details about Zen at Hot Chips on the 23rd of August.

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