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

[humbug]

That's not true AMD's implementation was (and still is) much poorer in regular usage such as lightly threaded scenarios because most the processor goes unused, whereas with Hyperthreading even if you only have 4 main threads you still have 90%+ of the processor providing the grunt to execute them.

AMD's cores (modules) weren't really worse than Intel's because if you compare an FX8350 and 2500K they perform about the same speed under ideal conditions when all of the processor is being utilised (eg. encoding), the problem is that AMD chose to split their cores straight down the middle leaving them short-handed in less than ideal conditions.

Its actually more a kin to a 3770K for Integer performance.

Spoiler

Its Floating Point performance where it falls down, although its not really THAT bad.

Each set of 2 Integer Units has either two 128Bit FP Units or combined as one 256Bit FP Unit.

Its an architecture that's very different to Intel's, both with and without Hyper Threading, most compliers are designed for Intel, there is nothing cynical about that, Intel have the largest market share and since its hard and expensive to code for two architectures at the same time; it just doesn't happen, so most application treat an AMD CPU like its an Intel.

The side effect of that is FPU thread allocation is very simple, it treats each Module as one core with one thread, so it pipes the work through one of its 128Bit FP Units causing a massive bottleneck.

Spoiler

I have said it before, but its worth saying again.

If AMD want to compete with Intel they have got to do it like Intel, it seems thats what they will now be doing.

They can't afford to be different.

 

[Freddie1980]

Godavari? What about Carrizo?

Didn't he lose the WWE tag team titles the other night?

 

[Orangey]

14nm will be used for various & sundry AMD bits n bobs before Zen, and you would hope by 2016 GF would have it running smoothly.

 

[humbug]

14nm will be used for various & sundry AMD bits n bobs before Zen, and you would hope by 2016 GF would have it running smoothly.

Get the node nicely run in.

With 14nm AMD should be able to double the number of integer units and have Intel style Hyper Threading on each one.

16 Cores, 32 Thread's and each with significantly higher performance than Vishera.

If they can pull that off performance would be absolutely sick, make the Athlon XP Bomb Shell look like a wet party popper.

 

[Bonjour]

Did I read somewhere that the new chips will be hand designed? Apparently Piledriver and Bulldozer could have been ~10% faster had they been hand designed, rather than automated. That certainly wouldn't have gone amiss.

 

[humbug]

Did I read somewhere that the new chips will be hand designed? Apparently Piledriver and Bulldozer could have been ~10% faster had they been hand designed, rather than automated. That certainly wouldn't have gone amiss.

Bulldozer was designed on a Laptop (not literally) but yes....

Piledriver is the same architecture with some minor tweaks, its basically an improved revision.

It does take a team of engineers years to design a CPU architecture from Scratch.

Jim Keller is the best CPU engineer AMD ever had, he was responsible for the Athlon XP and Athlon 64, and later at Apple the A4 and A5, he's one of the best in the business.

He came back to AMD in Mid 2012, so about 3 years ago.

Keller should know what needs to be done to get AMD back to competitive with their CPU's, lets hope he spent these last 3 years doing that.

 

[Bonjour]

If Keller went back in 2012, I'm guessing he suggested ditching Piledriver and starting from scratch, which was a huge decision to make.

 

[humbug]

If Keller went back in 2012, I'm guessing he suggested ditching Piledriver and starting from scratch, which was a huge decision to make.

The Man responsible for Bulldozer and Piledriver is no longer at AMD, i read somewhere that he was sacked, probably by Jim Keller

Get out!

 

[Martini1991]

Bulldozer was designed while they were all taking a hit on the bong.

I still don't understand what they were thinking when they launched it. I honestly can't understand how they thought it was acceptable to launch it as they did.
Some games didn't even actually work with it at launch either resulting in BSOD's till a BIOS fix came along.

 

[humbug]

Bulldozer was designed while they were all taking a hit on the bong.

I still don't understand what they were thinking when they launched it. I honestly can't understand how they thought it was acceptable to launch it as they did.
Some games didn't even actually work with it at launch either resulting in BSOD's till a BIOS fix came along.

Maybe they just got the wrong man in and by the time they got it on the test bench and realised it wasn't all that good it was too late, 100's $m spent on it, empty coffers, out of time, it had to go out as it was.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Bulldozer was designed while they were all taking a hit on the bong.

I still don't understand what they were thinking when they launched it. I honestly can't understand how they thought it was acceptable to launch it as they did.
Some games didn't even actually work with it at launch either resulting in BSOD's till a BIOS fix came along.

Its because it was launched for servers first and there were quite a few customers,like ORNL,who were waiting on the promised Opteron upgrades which had already been delayed,plus we don't know how much 32NM capacity they needed to buy off Global Foundries before they were committed to developing their 32NM process,of which AMD was the only customer(especially with the lopsidded WSA they signed too).

The runts were sold to consumers. I think if it were not the case,they might have stick with the Phenom II CPUs longer until PD was out.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Another Zen slide leaked:

http://wccftech.com/amd-zen-x86-quad-core-unit-block-diagram/

 

[Boomstick777]

Bulldozer was designed while they were all taking a hit on the bong.

I still don't understand what they were thinking when they launched it.

 

[Boomstick777]

Got faith in this guy,

 

[humbug]

Got faith in this guy,

That is interesting, so they are working on some stuff.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD roadmaps leaked:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37364181&postcount=566

FX and APU replacements on FM3 platform in 2016.

Edit!!

Looks like CPUs and APUs too. So the "high performance" parts will have no IGP it appears.

 

[humbug]

AMD roadmaps leaked:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37364181&postcount=566

FX and APU replacements on FM3 platform in 2016.

Edit!!

Looks like CPUs and APUs too. So the "high performance" parts will have no IGP it appears.

So a year and we should get 8 Core FX replacements, that suits me, mid 2016 is when i'm looking to do a rebuild.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So a year and we should get 8 Core FX replacements, that suits me, mid 2016 is when i'm looking to do a rebuild.

I would give that 15 to 18 months TBH.

 

[humbug]

I would give that 15 to 18 months TBH.

< November 2016?

 

[SiDeards73]

will be interesting to see a true 8 core chip up against a 4+4HT chip as well on DX12, not that i think its going to make much difference but you never know.

Anyhow, looks like im sticking with my 4770k until Zen and then its back to AMD for me if the Zen is anywhere near the Haswells performance