23 replies to this topic

[BaronSaturday]

If this Zen is what they say it is... dude. I poo. I poo.

16 cpu cores. Those cores will be broken into 4 clusters of 4 with 8mb of L3 cache per cluster and a shared 8mb pool of L2 cache with multi threading. It will have an on die r9 for the APUs with a dedicated cache pool. If this thing is really all of this stuff I don't know what Intel is going to answer with. This thing is madness and if they manage to keep it under 300 bucks it's going to kill it.

[Lioot]

[BaronSaturday]

Well. A few guys from Intel moved over and now it seems that AMD is going to be pushing their own version of hyper threading. I looked over the rumored specs for this thing and while it has 16 physical cores, they are in clusters so each cluster will be treated as a single core with a dedicated cache pool and then the additional shared cache pool will allow each individual core to run a second stream. So this thing will in theory be able to run 32 threads of code at once. I suspect it won't be about looking at what a single core can do, but what a cluster of cores can do.

[BaronSaturday]

This could changebthe race from core count to cluster count. Oh! I'm hard!

In all reality though, I suspect this is why AMD has been hemorrhaging money the way they have. They won both the xbone and ps4 with cougar and mac pro with firepro. Not to mention that AMD has seen massive returns on Kevari and Steamroller. So where did the money go? Tin foil hat time.

I suspect some major share holders told AMD to do what they do best. Innovate. Change the game again. Like when they dropped the first dual core and Intel went, "fuzzy bunny... we'll just copy two cpus. Here's dusl corezzzz lawlz". iTanium. Or ITanic is what it became known as. Or when AMD released the first ghz Athlon thunderbird anf Intel had no answer. Or the ghz gpu. Or put memory controllers on the chip and then licensed it to Intel.

So the share holders said do it big. Dump evrrything into r and d. The three guys that left AMD probably said no and the board asked them to step off. Now this thing is in the oven and the cluster race is on.

Edited by SaturdayGhede, 01 May 2015 - 02:50 AM.

[Lioot]

I have no idea, I only looked at this since I have an AMD 8320

[OdinTheWise]

i personally think it will fall flat on its face knowing AMD, bulldozer was supposed to be such a game changer and it fell flat. also, isnt hyper threading an intel patent? 

[BaronSaturday]

Yeah, but they're doing something different. As long as the tech is different and the name they can do it.

Also, dozer did push more units after it was found thst cinebench was using biased compilers. There's really nothing wrong with bulldozer. And again, I think AMD just threw everything they had at r&d. With everything they have, there's no other reason they should net a loss. Remember, AMD has some of the best engineers in the world. Yhey just havrn't been able to fund them, until now. Edpecially with AVID and MAC.

[( XD ) wimpyhugz]

I'm hoping that AMD's Zen architecture will be good. Competition in the market is always good for us consumers. Have to give AMD props though since they make both CPU and GPU meaning they're fighting on two fronts while Intel and NVIDIA only have to worry about one front.

[BaronSaturday]

I'm hoping that AMD's Zen architecture will be good. Competition in the market is always good for us consumers. Have to give AMD props though since they make both CPU and GPU meaning they're fighting on two fronts while Intel and NVIDIA only have to worry about one front.

I think it will be super good. I do honestly believe they just slammed all of their money in R&D. There's no way they should be negative after the raw wins with Kaveri, Xbone, PS4, Mac, AVID, and the samsung deal. Steamroller did fairly well. I think this is AMDs last stand on the desktop and I think they're gonna hit it big.

[Derpy Hooves]

If this Zen is what they say it is... dude. I poo. I poo.

16 cpu cores. Those cores will be broken into 4 clusters of 4 with 8mb of L3 cache per cluster and a shared 8mb pool of L2 cache with multi threading. It will have an on die r9 for the APUs with a dedicated cache pool. If this thing is really all of this stuff I don't know what Intel is going to answer with. This thing is madness and if they manage to keep it under 300 bucks it's going to kill it.

That's not how Zen is gonna be done albet it's a leaked block slide. This is the arcitecture of Zen, Zen is stepping away from Cluster Core design that was done in Excavator and Bulldozer, and moving to a more traditional design similiar to that of the old Athlon X2's and Phenom's. Also from the way things are shaping up and what AMD has said they'll be including their own variant of Hyper Threading.

[BaronSaturday]

That's not how Zen is gonna be done albet it's a leaked block slide. This is the arcitecture of Zen, Zen is stepping away from Cluster Core design that was done in Excavator and Bulldozer, and moving to a more traditional design similiar to that of the old Athlon X2's and Phenom's. Also from the way things are shaping up and what AMD has said they'll be including their own variant of Hyper Threading.

Neat! I must have seen an older leak. I wonder if this will be fm3 or fm2+. Though I doubt the latter... a boy can dream! I want this to be amazing. Any info on tdp and price point?

[OdinTheWise]

i still think it will fall flat

[BaronSaturday]

Not if it's strong. If it benchmarks well, it's gonna sell. Tek Syndicate actually moved off of compilerbenches after the cinebench fiasco. Bulldozer bounced back a bit after as well. AMD really hasn't struggled to move product. They actually ran out of 8350 for a couple weeks because the fab firm they use got bloated. I still want to know where the money went.

[Derpy Hooves]

Neat! I must have seen an older leak. I wonder if this will be fm3 or fm2+. Though I doubt the latter... a boy can dream! I want this to be amazing. Any info on tdp and price point?

It's purported to be on FM3/+

 

Also as for your comment of "where the money went.", no doubt into Roary Reeds pocket before he left, since SMT cores were his brain child afterall.

[BaronSaturday]

It's purported to be on FM3/+


Also as for your comment of "where the money went.", no doubt into Roary Reeds pocket before he left, since SMT cores were his brain child afterall.

Certainly not enough to put them at -20mil last quarter... besides, Intel's been doing SMT since for like a decade. He wasn't getting licencing from it then, why get a golden parachute now? Idk. That just seems like a stretch.

[Derpy Hooves]

Certainly not enough to put them at -20mil last quarter... besides, Intel's been doing SMT since for like a decade. He wasn't getting licencing from it then, why get a golden parachute now? Idk. That just seems like a stretch.

Yeah but it was his idea to do SMT with CMT which is what caused the mess that is the FX line right now.

[BaronSaturday]

Yeah but it was his idea to do SMT with CMT which is what caused the mess that is the FX line right now.

With this new info it looks like they're moving to true SMT. Which is promising.

[Nov8tr]

It'll be awhile before I go to Zen. I have a FX 8350 @ 4.6ghz stable as a rock and cool as a cucumber with my Noctua NH-D14 cooler. So yeah, looks awesome and down the road I'll do it. But my budget just stabbed me in the eye for even looking at it. :D

 

This is my cooler but not my computer. I have the 3 fan optional setup. :D

Spoiler

Edited by Nov8tr, 07 May 2015 - 11:47 PM.

[Derpy Hooves]

With this new info it looks like they're moving to true SMT. Which is promising.

 

That's the idea behind the move, top it all off theres been some new stuff shown at an AMD Investor conference on Wednesday.

 

It'll be awhile before I go to Zen. I have a FX 8350 @ 4.6ghz stable as a rock and cool as a cucumber with my Noctua NH-D14 cooler. So yeah, looks awesome and down the road I'll do it. But my budget just stabbed me in the eye for even looking at it. :D

 

This is my cooler but not my computer. I have the 3 fan optional setup. :D

Spoiler

 

This may get you to think different :3

 

http://www.anandtech...admap-zen-is-in
 

Massive performance gains over Excavator, DDR4 support, PCIe 3.0 support also a huge die shrink from 32nm to 14nm, plus whatever their HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) is gonna be bringing to the table.

[BaronSaturday]

That's the idea behind the move, top it all off theres been some new stuff shown at an AMD Investor conference on Wednesday.


This may get you to think different :3

http://www.anandtech...admap-zen-is-in

Massive performance gains over Excavator, DDR4 support, PCIe 3.0 support also a huge die shrink from 32nm to 14nm, plus whatever their HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) is gonna be bringing to the table.

I can't agree more. To be fair though, that 8350 is a bangin' ass chip at $169. Considering it's what, 3-4 years old and still hitting harder than anything Intel is offering at that price point? They did something right. I'll definitely be moving to zen assoon as it hits mini itx, however, I can't fault anyone for sticking with the 6350 and 8350.

[Derpy Hooves]

I can't agree more. To be fair though, that 8350 is a bangin' ass chip at $169. Considering it's what, 3-4 years old and still hitting harder than anything Intel is offering at that price point? They did something right. I'll definitely be moving to zen assoon as it hits mini itx, however, I can't fault anyone for sticking with the 6350 and 8350.

Oh I know I've got an 8350 build as a backup incase my Intel system decides to go emo and stop working. But hopefully AMD can bring down the power consumption on the new desktop line since 150W was pretty high, Intel only reached that high with the Extreme series.

[BaronSaturday]

Oh I know I've got an 8350 build as a backup incase my Intel system decides to go emo and stop working. But hopefully AMD can bring down the power consumption on the new desktop line since 150W was pretty high, Intel only reached that high with the Extreme series.

I can agree with that. Although, Jason of Jaystwocents fame did run the numbers and found that at the 8350 price point compared to the 4770K, it would take 10 years to recoup the price difference if one bought the Intel for that reason. I think power draw is a relative issue. It certainly wouldn't hurt to bring it down and I want it to go dow, but not if it drastically raises the price point. Does that make sense?

Also, and not make this an AMD vs Intel thread, cause we all know where that goes... I think where either of these companies justifies it's price point in the consumer market is different. I think Intel is meant for the pro-sumer market, where AMD is for the enthusiast. Not that either of those terms is mutually exclusive, but I'll explain.

Intel destroys AMD in 3d printing. Mostly anyway.$350-$500 really needs a return on inveinvestment and the average pro-sumer usually needs the extra power because they are more likely to sell a thing. 3d modeling, 3d printing, super high pixel vector graphics rendering are all high throughput sequential operations that require ultra high end enthusiast chips.

AMD offers a powerful chip at a very low price point. That's perfect for gaming, streaming, multi tasking, and internet video rendering. While it can reach into the pro-sumer market, it certainly won't do it well enough to turn a profit because AMD can't be expected to run at 100% nearly as long without breaking. And buying 5 AMD chips isn't a valuable investment.

Edited by BaronSaturday, 08 May 2015 - 03:34 AM.

[Nov8tr]

Oh believe me the heart is willing. The pocketbook is unable. Money is tight would be a massive understatement. It has taken me 10 years to get my system to the level it is now. sigh..........

[PoopSlinger]

I can't believe we are still waiting for Zen.  AMD has a long uphill battle.