AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[DanceswithUnix]

DDR4 looms on the horizon. If AMD were to release a new platform implementing modern interfaces (and with it, a new line of boards), users upgrading would be caught in a "DDR trap." It makes more sense for AMD -- a company that has built a reputation around being the long-term support solution -- to wait until DDR4 has arrived, rather than do a small step-up before then for PCI-e & USB3.

Such faulty thinking.

People often don't choose when they upgrade the PC. Something fails, or in business the support runs out, or perhaps the world changes around the machine and it becomes too slow for the tasks it now has to do. So you have to upgrade, and real soon. Doesn't matter what you buy, it won't have DDR4, so that is a wash. So you look at what other features the platform has, and decide based on those.

AM3+ chipsets are a complete dog's breakfast and must be hurting AMDs cpu sales. I think the DDR2 generation were about right in how they were pitched, now there is a lack of mainstream support and absolutely nothing but junk if you want to go uATX.

I can see why they aren't updating the CPU. Last time around the APU and CPU lines were both on the same 32nm SOI process so porting the cores from Trinity to AM3+ was easy. Now they are not compatible, so they need to either port the uncore, cache, hypertransport etc to 28nm bulk or re-layout the hand optimised bits of the new core to 32nm to stay on SOI. That takes time, so perhaps on this part of the roadmap they don't have the manpower to do that in a decent timeframe. Fine.

Chipsets are a different team to CPUs, and the chipsets have no memory interface (unless they have sideport RAM) as that is part of the CPU.

I can only assume AMD has a warehouse full of 990 chips (well, re-badged 890 chips anyway).

[CountBartok]

Amd China and North America cpu price cuts: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131211PD212.html.

[DanceswithUnix]

TSMC say that 16nm risk production is starting, more interestingly 20nm is about to go volume production.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33...isk-production

Maybe 20nm is what AMD are waiting for to make that new AM3+ cpu. Can dream can't I?

[ik9000]

TSMC say that 16nm risk production is starting, more interestingly 20nm is about to go volume production.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33...isk-production

Maybe 20nm is what AMD are waiting for to make that new AM3+ cpu. Can dream can't I?

at what point does hope become a wish, does a wish become a dream, does a dream become a fantasy, does a fantasy become a torment never to be fulfilled?

I too share this hope, but I resign myself not in my gaming lifetime most likely

[akiles333]

piledriver cores are awesome

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A comparison of the R7 250 and the HD7750:

http://translate.google.com/translat...-con-gpu-oland

They are around the same speed but the R7 250 consumes less power.

[CountBartok]

TSMC say that 16nm risk production is starting, more interestingly 20nm is about to go volume production.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/33...isk-production

Maybe 20nm is what AMD are waiting for to make that new AM3+ cpu. Can dream can't I?

There is a little more detail on TSMC 20nm here http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131212PD209.html.
with first shipments being early November for Xilinx.

And yes we can dream, would be great if it was true though

[CountBartok]

Google considers ARM chips for server farms HEXUS.net/qab6iv

Could AMD's custom chip devision do something like this?
They have ARM based chips and sea micro.
Or would google just do the whole thing in house?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The thing is TR was recommending the Core i3 3220 even when the FX6300 and FX6350 were available. The performance difference in newer games is a decent amount,even looking at the TR review. So someone who had an FX6300 since Christmas has done very well and a person with a Core i3 3220 not so good.

Edit!!

They pretty much ignore the FX6300 and FX6350 in previous guides:

http://techreport.com/review/25250/t...system-guide/2
http://techreport.com/review/24979/t...system-guide/2

A lot of these build guides seem to be an afterthought, which is annoying especially since the people are getting paid for doing them.

If I were in their situation,I would at least be bothered to try and do a good job. Heck if any of us were paid we would probably do a better job IMHO.

LOL at TR:

http://techreport.com/review/25743/t...system-guide/2
http://techreport.com/review/24954/a...pus-reviewed/6

They keep on recommending the Core i3 CPUs over the FX6300 and FX6350. They did it with the Core i3 3220 for a year and now the same with the Haswell Core i3.

Someone with an FX6300 at launch is riding pretty for the immediate future,whereas those with a Core i3 3220 will more likely need to upgrade.

Well, not necessarily. The cores in the PS4 and Xbone are based on AMD's lightweight Jaguar architecture, so they're far slower than those inside modern desktop CPUs. Also, what we know about how games are coded tells us that single-threaded performance will continue to matter for the foreseeable future. Even in next-gen titles, we're unlikely to see workloads spread evenly across eight cores. Rather, we'll probably see one heavy workload and several light ones, which will make single-threaded performance the bottleneck.

Thats why the FX6300 and FX6350 are starting to surge past Core i3 3220 now??

They kept using the same argument then,even when they delayed testing the FX6300/FX6350 for nearly 8 months.

Perhaps,they need to see how much PS2 performance has jumped,after SOE redid the engine to use more threads.

It really shows that they have not looked at the main next generation engines,ie CryENGINE 3,Frostbite 3 and id Tech 5 all use upto 8 threads. Unreal Engine 3 alone uses 4 threads,and Unreal Engine 4 will use 8 threads.

They fail to realise,that the console SOCs are X86,so its just easier for them to code for 6 to 7 threads on a console and do the same on a PC. Even Mantle is supposedly meant to thread well,so I am not sure if the Core i3 will be as good as they think it is TBH!

Edit!!

It gets better.

Their Core i3 and motherboard costs $225.

Their FX6300 and motherboard costs $185.

Really now TR?? $40 more for the Core i3.

That means instead of a GTX650TI Boost 2GB,you could can get a pre-overclocked R9 270 with BF4 with the FX6300:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125491

Plus it will still be cheaper!!

What about the FX8320 and the same motherboard for $235??

Oh! I know why.

If you're truly worried about multithreaded performance, then your best bet is probably to spend the extra $60 or so on a quad-core Haswell processor. One of those appears in the alts below, too.

They need to get a mention of a Core i5 in there somewhere.

However,the FX6300 and a nice overclocking motherboard and a 212 EVO costs $245:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128651

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103099

I think TR might need to pay more attention to their budget rigs.

[CountBartok]

64-bit ARM-based Opteron coming next year. http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-intr...014/66681.html.

[CountBartok]

Also HP now has a new cartridge with four AMD Opteron X2150 processors for there moonshot sever.
Each cartridge has four apu's 1.9 GHz Jaguar cores and integrated Radeon 8000 GPU.
More info:http://uk.hardware.info/news/38110/n...50-and-arm-a15

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A10 7850K CB score leaked:

http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-a1078...#ixzz2ngTGlHFb

The score is 547cb at 4.9GHZ and an A10 5800K running at 3.8GHZ scores 302:

http://forums.hexus.net/cpus/298409-...ml#post3065761

That means at 3.8GHZ,the A10 7850K should score around 424 cb,which is a 40% increase in IPC!

That means it would be around the same level as my Xeon E3 1220,and faster than a Core i5 2300.

Edit!!

It seems it might be fake.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

An update on that stacked memory collaboration AMD has been doing with other companies:

http://electroiq.com/blog/2013/12/am...memory-stacks/
https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/conte...d-goes-3d.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems AMD is developing an alternative to G-sync:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...4&postcount=19

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It appears desktop Jaguar will be a socketed CPU:

http://www.sweclockers.com/image/red...nal&k=c5a21261

[DanceswithUnix]

It appears desktop Jaguar will be a socketed CPU:

http://www.sweclockers.com/image/red...nal&k=c5a21261

More performance than AM3 Athlon??? Those Athlon X4 chips were pretty nippy, I don't see it myself.