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

[~>Dg<~]

or it could like the amd 480 a part that should have come 2 years earlier.

personally it will be hype use benchmarks that favour the cpu then come release slower than intel but at a reasonable price.

they just pull 15 years of being behind out of the hat now.if it was that good theyd be screaming from the roofs every kind of leak would have been made.

yet there isnt much just the usual benchmark from something 99 percent wont ever touch.bit like ashes of singularity.waste of time.

 

[humbug]

I'm still not sure what the point of Bristol Ridge is. Is it basically so they can stagger the roll out a new socket and chipset and a brand new CPU architecture rather than doing it all at once? i.e. old architecture + new socket for mainstream, new architecture + new socket for enthusiast, then new architecture + new socket for mainstream.

AMD already have Bristol Ridge deals with OEM's, Desktop and Notebook's.

In fact Bristol Ridge Notebooks are already shipping, those deals were done about a year ago.

AMD promised Excavator APU's on an AM4 platform for Desktops before Zen, this is them forfilling that promise.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Bristol-Ridge-in-Review-AMDs-A10-9600P-Against-the-Competition.168477.0.html < lowest end A10-9600P 15 Watt

 

[drunkenmaster]

Well yes, that's a (roughly) year cycle for new releases. In isolation even that seems a bit pointless due to the minor improvements each time but of course OEMs love it and it makes Intel money so whatever.

This is a bit different though because Zen is so close and it's a far bigger jump than any of Intel's new CPUs is these days. It seems as though Bristol Ridge is basically a tinkering platform for AMD to try some stuff on a mature architecture before jumping straight to Raven Bridge. That seems very sensible but at first I couldn't see why anyone would buy it. I guess the fact that it's AM4 means there's a nice upgrade path over the next few years, plus they're only going to OEMs (for now) who can of course make use of the lower power requirements, so they'll shift some units.

99% of people who will buy a laptop in the next 2 years have exactly no idea what Kabylake or Zen are. Most people don't read tech news sites or Anandtech. Most people just have a laptop die or get so painfully slow they go to a pcworld/bestbuy type shop and buy a laptop, that's it.

Some are more sensible and read some reviews comparing laptops in the price range. If Bristol Ridge based laptops are priced competitively and offer good performance for the price people might buy them. The concept that a large number of people will wait a year to buy a Zen laptop is simply erroneous, it doesn't happen, the majority of buyers are completely ignorant about what is in their machine or what might be coming up in a years time.

Bristol Ridge has both higher performance and lower power usage than Carrizo, it's hands down win and looks noticeably more competitive that means Bristol Ridge will sell better than Carrizo would up till Zen APUs are available and they will continue to sell better than Carrizo would after Zen APUs launch. There will still be 100k's of chips in the channel and 10k-100k's of laptops with those chips in stock. So 2 years from now there will be an Amazon deal for a $300 Bristol Ridge laptop which is still decently performing for the price or there could be $300 Carrizo laptops left to sell. The last Bristol Ridge laptops will sell long after Zen APU laptops become available.

 

[drunkenmaster]

AMD already have Bristol Ridge deals with OEM's, Desktop and Notebook's.

In fact Bristol Ridge Notebooks are already shipping, those deals were done about a year ago.

AMD promised Excavator APU's on an AM4 platform for Desktops before Zen, this is them forfilling that promise.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Bristol-Ridge-in-Review-AMDs-A10-9600P-Against-the-Competition.168477.0.html < lowest end A10-9600P 15 Watt

Honestly at 15W that is a genuinely great chip, heavy binning bringing them some really nice low power versions of top chips with only really minor clock speed reductions. It will obviously boost less often but less than half the power and only 300Mhz reduction in base clock speed is incredibly impressive.

Been wanting a laptop for ages and honestly all those A12/FX chips look great. The low power versions I presume are more expensive and as I'm not looking for ultra thin or insane battery life I'd be fine with a 35W version, even more so if I could underclock and undervolt it.

 

[DragonQ]

99% of people who will buy a laptop in the next 2 years have exactly no idea what Kabylake or Zen are. Most people don't read tech news sites or Anandtech. Most people just have a laptop die or get so painfully slow they go to a pcworld/bestbuy type shop and buy a laptop, that's it.

Some are more sensible and read some reviews comparing laptops in the price range. If Bristol Ridge based laptops are priced competitively and offer good performance for the price people might buy them. The concept that a large number of people will wait a year to buy a Zen laptop is simply erroneous, it doesn't happen, the majority of buyers are completely ignorant about what is in their machine or what might be coming up in a years time.

Bristol Ridge has both higher performance and lower power usage than Carrizo, it's hands down win and looks noticeably more competitive that means Bristol Ridge will sell better than Carrizo would up till Zen APUs are available and they will continue to sell better than Carrizo would after Zen APUs launch. There will still be 100k's of chips in the channel and 10k-100k's of laptops with those chips in stock. So 2 years from now there will be an Amazon deal for a $300 Bristol Ridge laptop which is still decently performing for the price or there could be $300 Carrizo laptops left to sell. The last Bristol Ridge laptops will sell long after Zen APU laptops become available.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. I wasn't thinking from the consumer's point of view, I was thinking from AMD's point of view. Of course the vast majority of people have no idea what they're buying. However, why put the R&D (albeit minimal), time and effort into Bristol Ridge when they are about to realase Zen and will later release Raven Ridge based off of it? Why not just put out Raven Ridge alongside Summit Ridge instead?

As I said though, I guess it gives them a chance to stagger releases and decrease the element of risk. It also lets them tinker with a mature architecture, which again spreads the risk. Or maybe they just need sales numbers for this tax year, who knows.

 

[jigger]

I would think because of price. Bristol Ridge will probably cover everything in the the current FM2 line up but still be part of the AM4 package.

 

[humbug]

Honestly at 15W that is a genuinely great chip, heavy binning bringing them some really nice low power versions of top chips with only really minor clock speed reductions. It will obviously boost less often but less than half the power and only 300Mhz reduction in base clock speed is incredibly impressive.

Been wanting a laptop for ages and honestly all those A12/FX chips look great. The low power versions I presume are more expensive and as I'm not looking for ultra thin or insane battery life I'd be fine with a 35W version, even more so if I could underclock and undervolt it.

Not bad at all is it? Yeah its actually pretty good. yet still on 28nm, even the CPU performance knocks the #### out of the much higher clocked top of the line 35 Watt Carrizo chip.

And the iGPU is just 9% shy of the Iris-Pro on the 25 Watt i5, and thats a very big and very expensive chip.

Just wait for the GCN 4 + HBM APU's, they will pull the limbs off Iris-Pro and beat it to death with the soggy ends.

 

[Martini1991]

Wonder if I'll be able to finally buy an AMD Laptop/Tablet.

 

[jigger]

Seems HP sell them.

 

[humbug]

Seems HP sell them.

Acer have some too tho i think HP better.
Edit, i think Lenovo too.

 

[Martini1991]

There's not an AMD chip in ant laptop or tablet I'd consider.

My laptop is a skylake m with a 3200x1800 screen at 13.3".

There's nothing like that from AMD.

Even the ultrabook I gave my girlfriend at 11.6" 1920x1080, there's nothing like from AMD.

Again. I've got a Surface Pro 3, there's nothing like that with an AMD chip.

I don't deny there's AMD laptops, but not even close to what I'd consider. It's not even anything to do with performance. It's everything else.

I say the same thing every year and it's the same thing.

Hopefully this will change.

 

[humbug]

There's not an AMD chip in ant laptop or tablet I'd consider.

My laptop is a skylake m with a 3200x1800 screen at 13.3".

There's nothing like that from AMD.

Even the ultrabook I gave my girlfriend at 11.6" 1920x1080, there's nothing like from AMD.

Again. I've got a Surface Pro 3, there's nothing like that with an AMD chip.

I don't deny there's AMD laptops, but not even close to what I'd consider. It's not even anything to do with performance. It's everything else.

Yes at the moment it does seem to be just lower and mid end, around the £300 to £500 mark.

More expensive laptops with the bigger 35 Watt chips seem to be none existant, tho they must exists or they would not make them, perhaps just not in the UK or even the English speaking world?

These Excavator Chips seem far more competitive than AMD have been for 10 years

Zen may put them on par with Intel's best, from an iGPU point perhaps much better.

AMD can try as hard as they want, its not upto them, its interesting that now Intel have decided the Anti Trust ruling from 10 years ago was not fair, arguing that paying a vendor not to use the competition chips is not anti competitive.

Why bring that up and try to over turn it now, 10 years later?

What are they afraid of?

 

[jigger]

why would you want an AMD laptop if you already have a Skylake one and surface 3. What are those a year old?

 

[Martini1991]

why would you want an AMD laptop if you already have a Skylake one and surface 3. What are those a year old?

I mean having an option.
There was never an option when I made my purchases.
Also. A surface 3 Pro is like almost 2 years old, very much willing to get rid of that for a fanless tablet.

 

[jigger]

You said

Wonder if I'll be able to finally buy an AMD Laptop/Tablet

You've had the option to buy AMD laptops for years.

 

[Martini1991]

You said You've had the option to buy AMD laptops for years.

So I had the option to buy a tablet similar to the surface 3 pro with an AMD chip? Or to buy an AMD powered ultrabook 13.3" fanless at 3200x1800?

There's nothing on the market now. And there wasn't then.
There was no option for ME to buy one.

 

[jigger]

I don't know. You never got specific.

You seem really mad you couldn't buy an AMD version. Chill out Intel aren't that bad.

 

[Martini1991]

Gets boring when there's nothing else to buy than yet another Intel product.
Haven't bought anything AMD for myself bar GPU's since 2011.

 

[jigger]

Then don't buy or write a very strongly worded email to AMD expressing your frustration with Intel products. Shrugs shoulders.

 

[nashathedog]

Acer have some too tho i think HP better.
Edit, i think Lenovo too.

I quite like HP, I had a Pavilion dual core Athlon system that I swapped out for a Phenom quad then added a 7850 and PSU, that lasted me years. It recently got packaged up with my old microwave and sent to Africa with loads of other unwanted electrical gear so hopefully someone's still enjoying it today.

I'm slowly saving and building a second PC as I've decided to build a racing sim set up in the spare bedroom so the delay for Zen is fine by me, It'll be a pricey Q1 though if Zen and Vega both deliver while landing at the same time. Fun times though