AMD announces 7th Generation A-Series mobile processors

[DanceswithUnix]

I think that's more or less inevitable at some point. A single HBM2 stack would give you an 8GB laptop with bandwidth that X99 can only dream of. External memory would become pretty much moot at that point.

A more realistic option at this point though might be a 1GB HBM 1 stack for the graphics subsystem. It makes all sorts of technical sense; I can only assume it doesn't make financial sense or they'd have done it by now?

A 1GB option is down to commercials and what the buyers can manage.

The 1GB wouldn't be graphics exclusive, or at least with HSA it needn't be, so you can either sell 1GB on chip and another 8GB on a stick to give a 9GB machine (which is better than the 8GB Intel option, because bigger numbers are better eh? ) *or* you reduce the component count by one part because you are already putting HBM on there anyway and make the APU an 8GB part. That gives you a simpler system, maybe if you do away with expansion ram sockets it can be smaller or have a bigger battery using that space.

1GB of HBM would probably be enough to give you the fastest superpi ever, which seems oddly important to some

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Intel version is currently on special offer and starts at $80 less than the AMD version, but it's pre-offer price is $150 more. It's using a higher end AMD APU, but it's barely mid-range in terms of HP's laptop spread. AMD can't persuade OEMs to put their APUs in high end laptops, because they don't have the reputation to sell in volume, and big box retailers won't spend time training their sales staff to do anything other than say "oh, you want an Intel processor". There's a whole culture that still pervades that equates Windows PCs with Intel processors, and I don't see any easy way for AMD to deal with that. OEMs simply won't invest in high end AMD laptops, as they don't think they'll sell, and AMD don't have either the market position to argue from, or the performance position to market them from. Why does the Intel version have dual channel memory options? My money's on Intel having the financial clout and market position to insist that HP make those options available. If AMD threaten to walk with no dual channel laptops, I doubt HP would care. If Intel threatened to walk? yeah, that's an issue.

Anyway, people buying a laptop to play games on wouldn't buy an HP Envy. If you're looking for an AMD laptop to play games you are going to get something like http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...p=c-amd-gaming - a dual graphics, dual channel, full HD laptop. That's a high end AMD laptop; it's still only £429. See? No market position to argue from. The only way for that to change is for AMD to produce processors that are so good, laptops will sell just because they have an AMD processor in them. Given the prevailing culture in general consumers, though? I can't see that happening, even if Zen is a huge success. Consumer inertia will continue to keep AMD stuck to the bottom of the barrel.

It's utterly sucky, but it's some way out of AMD's hands. They barely have enough income to keep the company running. Changing the entire public perception of their products? That's not going to happen overnight, or because they persuade one OEM to use dual channel memory. It's a very long term project.

But the problem if a high end BR design is so gimped,there is no reason for anybody to buy it. I would not buy it myself.The Intel version is just better overall,so who is going to buy it? The low end designs will be worse so BR is a failure already and a waste of R and D money.

It is no point AMD spending all this money on R and D to produce chips which are rubbish in realworld performance.

I have seen it on forums when somebody complains their AMD laptop is rubbish when compared to reviews using laptops using dual channel memory. Then somebody points out they are single channel and can't be upgraded and then people will just buy Intel after that. One bitten,twice shy.

It would be better served that AMD never bothered with BR,and spent the money on pushing dual channel Carrizo laptops with dual channel RAM.

A dual channel Carrizo IGP will destroy BR in IGP performance. AMD needs to think of the end user experience instead of just concentrating on the chips themselves. At least that way,next year when Zen APU is out they have some reasonably mindshare.

A single channel BR laptop will look like a pile of rubbish compared to an Intel based one. The ST scores will look rubbish and the IGP will look rubbish too,especially since RAM is cheap.

Just pushing out hardware subpar in realworld performance which looks good in powerpoint presentations means diddly squat.

[jigger]

If the work put in to the Bristol Ridge chip is undone by the OEM then I think AMD have to step in.

[lumireleon]

FX with inbuilt graphics... this is getting interesting for intel.