AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[DanceswithUnix]

Basically, if you're questioning why the 1800X is that much more expensive, you're not the target market

You might be missing a trick here.

If Ryzen can auto overclock, then AMD should be able to bin them by *asking* the cpu during testing how fast it can go. The top 5% or whatever can be marked as 1800X.

Silicon fabrication has always been a bit hit and miss on performance with the slightest variations in doping etc impacting performance and heat. If binning is less of a lottery, then that might mean that if you buy a 1700X then chances are you haven't got the fastest silicon. Depends on what the attainable frequency bell curve looks like.

[scaryjim]

... If Ryzen can auto overclock, then AMD should be able to bin them by *asking* the cpu during testing how fast it can go. ...

XFR is the joker in this pack, isn't it? If 1800Xes are specially selected as chips that have hit, say, 4.5GHz under ideal air cooling, whereas 1700Xes only make 4GHz, that's quite a big difference. If XFR works as advertised it'd make speed binning chips a *lot* easier for AMD: they could even package and lid them then just print the appropriate number onto the finished processor...

EDIT: oh, and as an aside to that - a die that can hit a higher clock speed within a given thermal limit *should* emit less heat - and therefore draw a little less power - at stock clocks. So the 1800X might even be slightly more energy efficient....?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I tend to be a SFF PC fan,so XFR really does sound interesting especially if it means certain cores can be boosted on the fly during lighter loads.

[watercooled]

EDIT: oh, and as an aside to that - a die that can hit a higher clock speed within a given thermal limit *should* emit less heat - and therefore draw a little less power - at stock clocks. So the 1800X might even be slightly more energy efficient....?

Possibly, but not necessarily - don't forget many modern chips have realistic power draw way below the TDP band they're grouped into, even under power virus load. TDP seems to be used more as a ballpark for entire families of CPUs rather than individual models now, and they're frequently miles off.

[kalniel]

XFR is the joker in this pack, isn't it? If 1800Xes are specially selected as chips that have hit, say, 4.5GHz under ideal air cooling, whereas 1700Xes only make 4GHz, that's quite a big difference. If XFR works as advertised it'd make speed binning chips a *lot* easier for AMD: they could even package and lid them then just print the appropriate number onto the finished processor...

EDIT: oh, and as an aside to that - a die that can hit a higher clock speed within a given thermal limit *should* emit less heat - and therefore draw a little less power - at stock clocks. So the 1800X might even be slightly more energy efficient....?

Isn't this all covered by the usual binning that fabs do already in the QA process? They already know what chips need which voltages to reach which frequencies in a factory controlled condition - and yes, it usually means that (for CPUs) higher reference speed models might be a touch more efficient at the same speeds compared to lower models - at least while there is a limit of high end supply - if there's more supply than demand then they just sell off higher end chips at the lower end to meet demand.

The auto-overclock/turbo boost etc. thing sounds to me to be just a continuation of the adaptive power/performance that things are heading towards - taking account of the local environment rather than the factory controlled environment in this case. I don't think it would replace the factory method for binning chips since I would expect that would use purpose build hardware/non-end user firmware.

[scaryjim]

Isn't this all covered by the usual binning that fabs do already in the QA process? ...

Oh, absolutely - I just wondered if XFR would make it easier for AMD to do that binning & QA; they already have a technology in place - built in - to drive a chip to its theoretical peak performance - afaict by doing continuous power & thermal monitoring (and no doubt using some complicated analytics/heuristics to determine when to increase voltages & clocks) - which might allow them to further automate that testing - I'm sure they wouldn't want to stick each chip in a consumer motherboard, but if the factory QA can tap into the same built in circuitry that XFR is using it should make QA easier/quicker...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

WOW:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu...ademic_paper/1

[DanceswithUnix]

WOW:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu...ademic_paper/1

An MCM of interposers with 3D stacking of dissimilar dies, seems a bit mental doesn't it, kind of like they are just playing to see if they can do it

Good luck to them!

Not the first time we have seem mention of some 3D gpu/cpu with hbm ram. Perhaps this sort of thing is the "NPU" mentioned in another thread.

[shaithis]

The benefits from HSA are such that something like this has to happen sooner-or-later.

[watercooled]

Time for a Ryzen thread yet? http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/10269...-ryzen-7-cpus/

[scaryjim]

Maybe - in the end we *did* manage to break 4000 posts in this one before the official Ryzen announcement...

[Terbinator]

Somewhat fitting end to the thread I'd say.

[Xlucine]

WOW:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu...ademic_paper/1

Whatever happened to integrated circuits?

[DanceswithUnix]

Whatever happened to integrated circuits?

We hit a limit and started stacking them up as a workaround

[watercooled]

Something has just occurred to me - what happened to the Bristol Ridge CPUs the AM4 platform was supposed to launch with? They were announced months ago but I've seen nothing else since.

[DanceswithUnix]

Something has just occurred to me - what happened to the Bristol Ridge CPUs the AM4 platform was supposed to launch with? They were announced months ago but I've seen nothing else since.

OEM only, they seemed to turn up in a few HP machines but not seen them in the wild.

Perhaps now consumer motherboards are out the APUs will leak into the retail markets.

Was just reading on my tablet that Digitimes claim a million Ryzen CPUs are available for launch day.