AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[watercooled]

Nothing besides rumour and speculation really.

From what I've read it's:
Probably SMT rather than CMT. But possibly CMT. Or possibly a bit of both. Or neither.
Big cores, like Haswell-size. But possibly an intermediate sized core. And the size references could be either apples-to apples e.g. on same theoretical node, or in absolute size terms.
Possibly replacing Cat and Construction cores. Or possibly only construction with Cat continuing, with A57 continuing that line*.

*This is purely my own logic-derived opinion, but considering the success of the Cat cores, it would seem like a questionable move to end it unless the new core really scales down well at good die size and cost; both ARM and Intel are strongly pushing having two cores for reasons along these lines. OTOH, big+small for both ARM and x86 would mean at least 4 separate cores for AMD. Granted the semi-custom business model and modularity of cores might allow such a portfolio of cores, but I wonder what it means for their traditional consumer processors? On the other, other hand, the likes of Qualcomm have a ton of different cores available for different markets e.g. A5, A7, soon A53 and A57, Krait, Krait 300+400, and likely a future custom AArch64 core.

A guy over at SA claiming to have some inside knowledge has provided some of this IIRC, but the same person also completely rejected the Zen codename, until of course AMD publicly confirmed it.

So all in all, not much solid information.

[Bonebreaker777]

This review is interesting:

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia...-4k/index.html

The FX8350 does quite well!!

Quite well? You mean it either keeps up or beats Intel. At 4k. Wonder what the results would be with some conservative OC on both systems (including RAM OC).

The FX8310 has appeared and it could be only £80:

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2014/2...t_AM3_CPU.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cp...just-12579e99/

Only £80? New "best performance/price ratio" CPU after the FX-6300? Now just more ITX/mATX AM3+ boards and we can be all happy Wonder how far it could be a octa-core underclocked and undervoltaged. For a potential system, supporting ECC and be a very competitive in MoBo equipment, against the octa-core Atom (I know it is hardly the same league but still).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If that FX8310 turns up for £80 it would be quite an interesting offering in the sub £100 market indeed!!

Also,here is an interesting comparison of the console CPUs:

http://www.redgamingtech.com/ubisoft...u-performance/



So its not a general purpose CPU performance comparison due to the workload.

The CPU in the XBox360 is a Power based one running a 3.2GHZ with three cores having HT,ie,six threads. So six Jaguar cores are around three times faster overall and I expect a decent improvement in single threaded performance too.

The PS3 CPU comparison is interesting as the CBE had one Power based dual core with HT running at 3.2GHZ and has 7 SPEs which are not true cores but can be used to enhance FP performance quite a bit.

However,OFC in reality thet test is artificial as using the CPU in that way just to animate cloth would not be done as other aspects of the game will also be competing for CPU resources too.

[DanceswithUnix]

More price cute reported: http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/36...hes-apu-prices

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Supposedly a massive AMD Carrizo spec and performance leak:

http://wccftech.com/amd-carrizo-apu-...#ixzz3Hm2EZyPz

[DanceswithUnix]

Supposedly a massive AMD Carrizo spec and performance leak:

http://wccftech.com/amd-carrizo-apu-...#ixzz3Hm2EZyPz

I think "massive" is rather over egging his case there

December release? Who the heck releases silicon in December, just when companies are trying to sell off their stock for Christmas.

Is there a page limit for threads on this forum? We seem to be on to Excavator chitchat now.

[kompukare]

December release? Who the heck releases silicon in December, just when companies are trying to sell off their stock for Christmas.

Because some exec mentioned something about shipping in 2014 or similar? AMD did the same with 7970 where because Rory mentioned something about shipping that year, they rushed 7970 out before the drivers were properly finished. R9 290X was also rushed. Rushed to market and then gets poor reviews (probably helped by a certain rival basically telling some sites what to concentrate on).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

(probably helped by a certain rival basically telling some sites what to concentrate on).

It just shows you how biased sites are though - sites like TR were bitching and moaning about AMD review requests but sites are happy to accommodate Nvidia requests behind their competitors back and hype up Nvidia whenever possible. Sounds a bit like Apple TBH.

[watercooled]

Is there a page limit for threads on this forum? We seem to be on to Excavator chitchat now.

This must be the longest thread in Hexus history! xD

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some X4 860K benchmarks:

http://www.pcpop.com/doc/1/1039/1039026_all.shtml
http://digi.takungpao.com/pc/jspc/2014-09/2727979.html
http://www.***********.net/reviews/c...n_cpu_review/1

In the last review the X4 860K appears to be running games far better than the X4 760K!!

[DanceswithUnix]

In the last review the X4 860K appears to be running games far better than the X4 760K!!

Interesting comparison on there of 860K+R7 250 vs 7850K, both platforms the same price, but discrete video is just bound to win.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The last review was o v e r c l o c k since Hexus has some issue with them.

I found another review of the X4 860K:

http://diy.pconline.com.cn/546/5469096_all.html

[watercooled]

There are a couple of benchmarks out for the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, one of the first Core M platforms.

It seems people who were expecting to get notebook performance magically from a processor in more tablet TDP range may be disappointed; the Yoga has a fan and still throttles severely under load. Of course, this is only one platform, but we have some ballpark figures to look at.

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/5486-...-3-pro-review/
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/lapto...ovo-yoga-3-pro
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-...articleContent

For way of a quick comparison to other platforms, both Bay Trail and Mullins score just under 1.5 in Cinebench R11.5. The Yoga scores 1.88 before throttling. Assuming it throttles the same as R15 in the Ultrabookreview article (I worked out about 70.76%), we'd be looking at something like 1.33 in the third run.

Of course, the Core M is also aimed at vastly more expensive platforms than BT/Mullins; the Yoga 3 is an eye-watering £1300.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks like NV is now giving away games with the GTX970 and GTX980 - according to some people on forums,AMD giving away games was a desperate attempt. I wonder if that applies to Nvidia??

[KeyboardDemon]

Nearly all of the GPUs I've bought have come with bundled games, the only exceptions being those that I bought as OEM. So bundling games is nothing new, I started building PCs in 1999 and stopped buying OEM GPUs around 2003 when I got my nVidia 6600GT, I can't remember what games came with it, but I know I have had a massive chunk of the titles in my collection supplied as a result of games bundles with GPUs.

[kalniel]

20nm APUs sound like they're about done:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...in-development