AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[DanceswithUnix]

Naaaah. More IPC with the 4 cores (maybe the L3 cache can help there) and 128-256MB Stacked huge bandwidth, ultra low latency RAM

I was trying to stick to stuff that AMD can do off the shelf. Even just doing a certain configuration of what they already have would take months to turn up.

[watercooled]

http://wccftech.com/samsung-moves-ban-nvidia-devices/

I didn't see that one coming either. /sarc

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://wccftech.com/samsung-moves-ban-nvidia-devices/

I didn't see that one coming either. /sarc

Not sure if true:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/...ional-manager/

I did a live chat with a Samsung regional manager. The point is he brought up an interesting claim.

Paraphrased: He stated that the reason why Nvidia is suing Samsung is because Samsung is working with AMD to shrink their CPU nodes. That will help them compete with Intel and earn profits off the CPU market.
Nvidia, being a GPU company, didn't want AMD to have that advantage. Essentially, the lawsuit was to be a bargaining tool as an attempt to end the AMD and Samsung cooperation.
This seems like a wild claim to me, what do you think?



Edit: to further iterate i do not think that this is true and the source of this the samsung regional manager obviously has bias

Samsung and Global Foundries are co-operating ATM on process node tech,and AMD does use Global Foundries for its CPUs,and the chips in the consoles and there has been repeated noise they would use them for GPUs too. Could be a load of BS rumour OFC,but I wonder if GPUs are more the concern,especially as it would give AMD access to two fabs now,especially since TSMC is preferring companies like Apple and Qualcomm now for newer nodes.

[watercooled]

Seems like a bit of a long shot, at best I'd expect it to be random speculation from a CS agent and even then I'm sceptical that they'd even discuss such a topic.

But IIRC the lawsuit from Nvidia is aimed at Samsung's devices sector, not semiconductor/VLSI?

It does seem a bit short-sighted for a company like Nvidia to sue a giant like Samsung though, and the counter-suit is totally predictable. I wonder how many Samsung laptops etc use Nvidia GPUs/are still planned to use them now? And I wonder how much memory Samsung sells to Nvidia and their AIB partners for GPUs, and displays etc for their tablets?

[watercooled]

I wonder if the ones relentlessly pushing the Pentium AE as a 'great' gaming CPU are feeling a bit embarrassed now?

http://wccftech.com/death-gaming-dual-core/

[scaryjim]

I wonder if the ones relentlessly pushing the Pentium AE as a 'great' gaming CPU are feeling a bit embarrassed now?

http://wccftech.com/death-gaming-dual-core/

I'd have more time for that article if it didn't start:

The days of gaming on a budget seem to be coming to an end.

Apparently they've missed the fact that you can get a quad core CPU for < £30

OK, so maybe you won't get a great gaming experience on a 1.3GHz small-core Sempron (although try an R7 250X and Mantle - could be interesting....). I must've meant a quad core CPU for ~ £60

[watercooled]

Well I wouldn't read too much into the general tone of wccf articles, and the headline is a bit exaggerated, to put it mildly. I just found the subject of interest i.e. crashing on dual cores.

TBF, like AC: Unity, FC4 doesn't seem like the best of PC ports so it may be largely attributable to that fact. I'll wait for a more thorough comparison of CPU performance rather than anecdotes before reading too much into it.

If the Ubisoft games are anything to go by though, GameWorks doesn't exactly seem to be living up to its promise of better PC ports. I mean everyone expected poor optimisation for AMD cards on release, but the two examples we've seen so far seem to run badly full stop.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Didn't I tell you all the articles praising the Pentium dual core were premature(as were all the people on forums)?? Now I bet the excuse,is you can spend more on a Core i5 as an upgrade!!

This is why I told people it was better to go with a FX6300 or a Core i3 in the first place. Every single warning sign was there that at least 4 reasonably fast threads were needed.

I suspect Intel are not that dumb - they know what DX12 will bring to the table in terms of improved multi-threading and it wouldn't surprise me if it was partially a tactic to get people onboard and then lock them into a Core i5/Core i7 upgrade path when the performance of the pentium starts to full apart in more and more games.

It appears not all the Pentium dual cores can always reliably overclock to 4.5GHZ,and even then it appears many of the budget motherboards which could support it needed a BIOS update.

The tech reporting world appears to be full of people who jump on the latest bandwagon IMHO. They just throw around words like IPC and single threaded performance(trying to sound clever) without actually understanding anything - I like to see how many games would run well on a single core CPU with the IPC of Haswell clocked to 6GHZ. Its only one of many metrics which need to be considered.

[Bonebreaker777]

I wonder if the ones relentlessly pushing the Pentium AE as a 'great' gaming CPU are feeling a bit embarrassed now?

http://wccftech.com/death-gaming-dual-core/

Wonder if a patch in the near future will fix it (as apparently pursued/promised)...

If so about budget gaming, A8-5600K or 3850 Kabini with OC and 250/250x (taking into consideration the budget equalisation of the AM1 MoBo prices vs FM2 MoBo prices plus memory module requirements for the Trinity CPU + GPU vs single channel for Kabini).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wonder if a patch in the near future will fix it (as apparently pursued/promised)...

The engines and the games they are based on are moving on bit by bit,just like the move from single to dual cores.

The same is happening now as we move to engines which support more threads better.

[Bonebreaker777]

The engines and the games they are based on are moving on bit by bit,just like the move from single to dual cores.

The same is happening now as we move to engines which support more thread better.

True but the article does mention a patch fix wanted/needed so some people can still play it till they upgrade (or not, hence the minimal hardware requirements were ignored).

[watercooled]

Hmm,
Somewhat ironically, it seems FC4 runs significantly better on AMD than Nvidia cards at the moment.

http://www.techspot.com/review/917-f...rks/page3.html
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps...-test-gpu.html

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

True but the article does mention a patch fix so some people can still play it till they upgrade (or not, hence the minimal hardware requirements were ignored).

WatchDogs and Thief had performance problems on dual cores too. There are reports the latest Dragonage is having the same issues too,and that is CryENGINE based - HT on the Core i7 3770K made it nocticeably faster than the Core i5 3570K in Crysis3.

The G3258 is going to have a very poor lifespan running any games based on a newish engine.

Its only going to get worse and worse in the next 12 to 18 months. I suspect the Haswell Core i3 CPUs will OTH still be OK.

[CountBartok]

So it seems all AMD chipset R&D will be handled by ASMedia.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20141124PM201.html

[Bonebreaker777]

So it seems all AMD chipset R&D will be handled by ASMedia.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20141124PM201.html

If I understand correctly, does it mean the occasional south bridge only?

Or active participation in the implementation of the newest SATA, PCIe and USB standards into the CPU/APU cores?

[DanceswithUnix]

"He also noted that AMD is now producing computing, graphics, and semi-custom products all at Global Foundries..."

So which graphics chips are made at Global Foundries?

http://semiaccurate.com/2014/12/05/a...restructuring/

Lots of interesting snippets in there.