AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[watercooled]

What a catastrophic waste of money.

[DanceswithUnix]

Hopefully this is not true:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130716PD202.html

The GF 28NM process is a half node shrink of the 32NM process and is meant not to be SOI either,and still they have problems with ramping up production of larger chips??

Fudzilla seems to think that GF have spare capacity. Well, enough to go selling a fab to Apple.

Perhaps AMD are diverting wafers away from this line onto some other more profitable device?

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/31...-samsung-glofo

[scaryjim]

2.75GHz - possibly a turbo clock speed? 2GHz stock on all cores seems to be about standard for a top-end Jaguar implementation, but that could potentially leave room for a decent turbo clock where not all cores are being used heavily (and before anyone bleats about multithreading, there are some parts of game code that simply can't be effectively parallelised, so there will always be benefit from increasing single thread performance). I don't buy the suggested link to the GDDR5 memory speed - 5500Mbps GDDR5 runs at 1375MHz, and for an FCC filing they're not going mess with "effective" clock speeds, simply doesn't make sense.

[watercooled]

Fudzilla seems to think that GF have spare capacity. Well, enough to go selling a fab to Apple.

Perhaps AMD are diverting wafers away from this line onto some other more profitable device?

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/31...-samsung-glofo

Ah so it was GloFo SA was talking about? That wasn't actually mentioned in the unpaid article, just that they 'have' a fab.

I wonder how that works exactly? GF only have two 300mm fabs capable of 28nm, surely they wouldn't want to completely sell half of their modern fab business? Maybe they've just reserved some capacity, again, something I can't see GF being too happy about for similar reasons TSMC didn't play game.

Having Apple as a *customer*, they'd surely be happy about that, and it would likely be fairly good for competition.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

2.75GHz - possibly a turbo clock speed? 2GHz stock on all cores seems to be about standard for a top-end Jaguar implementation, but that could potentially leave room for a decent turbo clock where not all cores are being used heavily (and before anyone bleats about multithreading, there are some parts of game code that simply can't be effectively parallelised, so there will always be benefit from increasing single thread performance). I don't buy the suggested link to the GDDR5 memory speed - 5500Mbps GDDR5 runs at 1375MHz, and for an FCC filing they're not going mess with "effective" clock speeds, simply doesn't make sense.

If its the Turbo clockspeed,then single threaded performance might not be so bad!

I did some Moose level calculations and at 2.75GHZ it would mean around 1.79GHZ SB single thread performance in CB:

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item2030/cine.png

The thing is that with CB 11.5 single thread the IPC of Jaguar is the same as PD:

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1923/cine.png

I don't see why tech enthusiasts are thinking the CPU in the PS4 SOC is weak. At least looking at CB as a reference,if the cores are running at 2GHZ to 2.75GHZ that means the equivalent of 1.4GHZ to 1.79GHZ SB cores in my estimation,for single thread benchmarks. In CB the whole CPU in the SOC is probably equivalent to around a 2GHZ SB based Core i7 if all cores are leveraged.

[watercooled]

It's not Intel, therefore it's weak, is what it generally boils down to TBH...

It's going to be in a console and, aside from the not-insignificant hardware differences, it will be well-optimised for. People are still comparing to some of the worst examples of current-gen games where the PC version is an afterthought and severe lack of optimisation means you're relying on the big desktop cores to bruteforce their way through the code. GTA IV still stands as an infamous example of this.

No, not everything is perfectly suited to embarrassingly parallel processing, but there's still a hack of a lot of room for improvement on an awful lot of CPU-bottlenecked games. Some of the newer, forward-looking engines like used in Crysis 3 are good examples of this. The fact that we're still seeing respectable graphics quality out of the current consoles is also a testament to this; single-threaded performance isn't stellar, to put it politely. Just because some code isn't suited to scaling well to a million threads doesn't mean it can't be suited to at least some amount of threading; I think some compression technologies are a decent example of this. A few will only split into multiple threads if they're compressing a load of smaller files i.e. one file per core, whereas programs like 7zip will use essentially all the threads you can throw at it even for a single chunk of input. And look at par2 - the original version will still only use a single thread, but there's a third-party multi-threaded version available which works very well.

[DanceswithUnix]

Ah so it was GloFo SA was talking about? That wasn't actually mentioned in the unpaid article, just that they 'have' a fab.

I wonder how that works exactly? GF only have two 300mm fabs capable of 28nm, surely they wouldn't want to completely sell half of their modern fab business? Maybe they've just reserved some capacity, again, something I can't see GF being too happy about for similar reasons TSMC didn't play game.

Having Apple as a *customer*, they'd surely be happy about that, and it would likely be fairly good for competition.

If Apple gives them money for a fab, then they can build a new fab. I'm guessing Apple can't just jump into and max out a fab straight away, so there is some time before a new fab is needed. How much money, how much time, that is the kind of commercial stuff that can be negotiated. Perhaps they will sell back capacity to glofo during their ramp up?

If Apple were simply a customer like any other, then I presume they would still use the same amount of fab capacity, they would just pay for it in different terms.

OTOH, with transfer of ownership GloFo probably couldn't use that capacity for x86 cpus for AMD.

Edit to add: I'm sure Charlie must be chuffed if they did re-publish his paid for article. I only see the free stuff, so I don't know.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The FX9370 and FX9590 are up for sale:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-f...ache-8mb-l3-ca
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...67&subcat=1825
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-f...che-8mb-l3-cac
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...67&subcat=1825

[scaryjim]

£251 without a cooler doesn't sound too bad for the 9370, tbh - cheaper than a 4770k. Be interested to know what the actual heat dissapation of these is like: I suspect 220W is a pessimistic estimate to ensure users use adequate cooling.

£700 for the 9590 is pretty ridiculous, though.

[Terbinator]

I mean, £250 is still silly money compared to a 4770K.

Given the proximity in pricing it would now be fair to bring the 'You'd get further overclocking the Intel, though' argument in to it. None of these chips are expected to be run at stock, but i'd put my house on it that the AMD would give away first, either in performance stakes or heat/TDP issues.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I expect these chips to be binned higher,so the FX9370 probably would reach higher clockspeeds than an FX8350 I suspect or similar clockspeeds probably at a lower TDP. The existing clockspeeds are validated by AMD which means it will be to a higher standard than manual overclocking.

This is what you are paying for and TBH anything more than an FX8320 on the AMD side or a Core i5 4670K or Xeon E3 1230 V3 on the Intel side has gone past the price/performance curve anyway for gaming.

The heat/TDP are not as relevant when compared to Intel now especially with the temperature issues Haswell has, due to a combination of the 22NM process node and thermal interface compound,meaning you need decent cooling in both cases anyway.

You could make the argument you need a better motherboard with the AMD CPU though,which probably would be where any price advantage would vanish.

I do think AMD missed a trick. They should have priced the FX9590 at the same price as the Core i7 4770K in very limited quantities even at a loss,and then priced the FX9370 at £200 to £220,closer to the Core i5 4670K. It would have been better PR which is the point of these CPUs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems AMD has developed a custom quad core CPU for the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1554...ce=google_news
http://mashable.com/2013/07/15/samsu...v-book-9-lite/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7093/a...style-hands-on
http://techreport.com/news/25082/800...due-on-july-28

It looks like they are using an A4-5000,so I wonder what the custom portion of it is??

Edit!!

This Kabini based subnotebook actually does not look too bad:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.93321.0.html

It actually has a touchscreen display with an IPS panel for under £400.

[DanceswithUnix]

I wonder if they are making a grand gesture to try and get away from their position as a budget brand.

If they charged 200 for the 9370, then it might make Intel drop their prices a bit and then people still wouldn't buy the AMD part.

I notice Aria say they have 7 in stock. Didn't they have 7 yesterday? They must be getting replacements for all the ones they sold very fast

Unless Paypal want to give me a trillion dollars (while they are in the mood for such handouts) it all seems a bit academic, but I really would like to see a proper benchmark for one of these chips. No mention on the Asus site of compatibility with my motherboard though. Looking at the expensive ones, I couldn't see it listed there yet either.

[watercooled]

I suppose I should justify my earlier comment, I was fairly shocked to see that price was actually correct! I've said the same about past Intel CPUs in the same price range, of course.

The asking price for the 9590 is just taking the wee, although, I guess it could redeem itself by being an exceptionally capable overclocker aimed at record-breakers etc. Yes, it's obviously way beyond the price/performance sweet spot, but still I can't help feeling it's slightly overpriced for something which is essentially a factory OC'd 8350.

[Terbinator]

...
I notice Aria say they have 7 in stock. Didn't they have 7 yesterday? They must be getting replacements for all the ones they sold very fast
....

I was just thinking this then. Aria aren't the biggest of etailers in the country, how can they afford to stock these when the reality of people buying them is nil?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If they charged 200 for the 9370, then it might make Intel drop their prices a bit and then people still wouldn't buy the AMD part.

It could have a 95W TDP and be £120 and I doubt it,due to the fanboism by a number of core Intel users especially in the US.

On Anandtech forums for example there are people who dislike AMD so much,that just because CPUs like the X4 750K,X4 760K,FX6300,or even the FX8320 on offer are probably quite viable alternatives for gaming systems to what Intel offers,that they raised the bar to anything under a Core i5 K series is useless for gaming,even with TF2! Yep,TF2.

Gordon Bennett,there was even a discussion on the benefits in a more budget limited build of getting a cheap CPU and putting money into the graphics card if you could not stretch to a Core i5 and decent graphics card. No,it was get Core i5,get a Core i5 AT ANY COST otherwise ALL GAMES WILL NOT RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If it does not bottleneck now it will bottleneck when the 14NM CARDS ARE OUT!!

Then there was arguments how after 4 years the Core i5 would cost the same as a FX6300 even at 50% to 100% greater upfront costs ,etc so there was no price difference now.

Then there was a thread on the same forum about an article which showed going with a more expensive CPU and a weaker card actually lead to lower framerates in many games. Not rocket science TBH. Fail.