Finally at long last AMD takes APU's seriously

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For years people have been wondering why AMD don't make a big APU for retail, like the PS5 APU for example.

Well now its coming, 'Strix Halo' mega APU.

16 Zen 5 cores.
40 RDNA 3.5 CU's , 2560 Shaders, same number of shaders as the RX 6750XT, but RDNA 3.5.
2X 256Bit LPDDR5 IMC's.

Expected to compete with RTX 4070 Laptop.

Scalable power range 20 to 120 watts.

This is a stronger than PS5 laptop APU.

AMD Zen 5 Strix Halo Leak: Killing Nvidia Laptops & MTL Adamantine! (+ RTX 4070 Sales Update)

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Apparently AMD are pretty much at 40% server market share, an intended target reached and they think taking much more than that is going to be more difficult.
They also have money now, like real money, a burgeoning war chest and they think its time to bust the laptop market wide open.... actually taking Nvidia and Intel on at the same time.

 

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Its defiantly a Laptop APU, but it could easily be modified for Desktop, i would think OEM's would like it for Desktop prebuilds and be that as it may then there is no reason not to put this in retail also.

 

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I'll explain this a bit more.

Between them Nvidia and Intel have a total monopoly in Laptop's, Intel provide the CPU, Nvidia the GPU, because up until now AMD have only serviced Laptop's to have a foot in the door, to keep OEM's interested, and perhaps even begging for more.

Nvidia i think particularly take advantage of that, we think we have it bad? An RTX 4070 Mobile dGPU probably costs those OEM's $500 or more, because where else are you going to get something like that? Why do you think a Laptop with something like that in it costs £1500?

Excluding datacentre its where the real money is, so what if, what if instead of paying $500 for a 4070 mobile and $300 for a 13700K mobile you pay $500 for a Strix Halo, add to that because its a singular chip the Laptop chassis can be more compact, or have more room for better cooling, and be less complex, so cheaper.
To OEM's that's a revolution, they can make thinner, lighter high end gaming laptops and much cheaper, AMD win because that mega APU probably only costs AMD $100, so huge margins.

Watch out, now AMD are gunning for this.

 

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Would like this thing to have 8 cores (for more affordable pricing) and come as an "AIO" package with a motherboard and a ram. Would make it a no brainer pickup for your average person that just wants to play games and doesn't know or care much about PC's.
But I still see memory bandwidth as an issue with these big APUs. How are they going to feed them?

Or like a Nuc but without the Nuc tax.

These things are obviously more constrained than a dGPU with the sane number of CU's, but i think people misunderstand that, the memory bandwidth, or lack there of doesn't act like a hard limit on scaling, its not like if you only have 100GB/s it wont scale past 1024 shaders, for example.
Its simply part of a performance metric, and i think increasingly less so due to clever architectural designs.

The latest APU (Phoenix) is coming soon in Asus's new Zen Book, with just 12 CU's and reliant of the system ram is throwing out over 70 FPS avrg at 1080P high settings in Forza 5, my RTX 2070 Super averages 90 at 1440P on high, that's ####### phenomenal for a little 35 watt Laptop APU dependent on system ram.

The Asus Ally has a 15 watt version running AAA games at 1080P, its twice as fast as the APU in the Steam Deck, things are moving and moving fast, i think AMD have worked on the memory bandwidth issue of APU's and it just doesn't matter much anymore.

 

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100GB/s seems low for a 2X 256Bit LPDDR5 IMC. My PC gets ~76GB/s with 5600 RAM. Think the PC has 2*64 bit controllers for 128bit total, 2X 256Bit is a 4x increase in bus width, maybe they mean dual channel 256 bit, that would be double the PC but they probably run 4800 or slower RAM so 100GB/s seems not far off.

That was just a random example from me, not actual specifications of anything.

 

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I'd really hope amd sells these separately so people can do quick sweet upgrades

As much as pc gamers hate the idea, I actually like the idea of a single chip that has everything in one - it means you can use a much smalller case, cooling is simpler, it's easier to troubleshoot and overall the upgrade process is much smoother. The main downside is that if you want an upgrade - like faster graphics then you have to replace the entire apu which contains your cpu, memory etc

I'm the same, hate the idea of high performance all in one GPU + CPU, but, you're right, they are perfect for a tiny 1L box under the telly as a TV media center/XBox alternative, a proper one with your own custom Linux OS, of which there are plenty to chose from designed for just such a thing, i would love that....

 

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Let it die, AMD and especially Nvidia have been exploiting the lower half (well the lack thereof), this spells well for us consumers. Hopefully this also incentivises Intel (and maybe ARM etc in future) to pick up the pace on their own APUs.

£200 'ish dGPU's is something that both AMD and Nvidia don't want to do anymore, AMD have actually said this complaining the margins on such things these days are just too tight.

You can understand it, an APU is just a chip, it doesn't have a PCB with 50 other components on it, it doesn't need memory IC's, it doesn't need display outputs, it doesn't need a hunk of metal and fans strapped to it, that is quite a lot of stuff for £200.

Ok fine, if an APU for around that money is 1080P capable then lets do that....

 

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At some point in the not too distant future the gaming graphics card market will become a race to the bottom. I think it would be wise for any maker that can to keep its hand in the low margin market.

You make a good point.

 

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It’d be nice if AMD would take desktop APUs seriously.

Yeah, currently the best they do is.....

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8 Vega CU's at 2000Mhz

Phoenix has 12 RDNA 3 CU's at 2800Mhz in a Laptop.
All the hype for Phoenix was that it was going to "decimate" Nvidia's low end, solidly RTX 3060M performance... yadda yadda....
Well its been tested, i know Forza 5, when i saw it pushing 70 FPS 1080P high i could well belive the hype. its not massively slower than my RTX 2070 Super, i think an RTX 2060 Super would struggle fending it off.... Its a Laptop APU
Apparently Nvidia have dropped the MX line, yeah i'll bet....

And that one at least is coming to desktop, probably clocked to 3200Mhz.

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