AMD - Piledriver chitchat

[scaryjim]

... if AMD want to make head way in the i5 arena, $199 might be more reasonable. ...

I'd've thought the 4-core 8-thread chips would be the ones to challenge in that market segment, with the 6-core targeting the i7 market share. Typically the core-reduced parts are clocked slightly higher than the fully enabled parts, so we might see a 4-core, 8-thread processor at around 3.7GHz? For $149 that'd be pretty good...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I saw this slide over on AT forums:



So a 40% improvement in performance per watt over Excavator??

Edit!!

Zen being previewed in two weeks time too:

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/new-horizon

[kalniel]

I saw this slide over on AT forums:



So a 40% improvement in performance per watt over Excavator??

The slide is worded more carefully that that. It's 40% better IPC/watt over Excavator. No word on whether it's the same clock speed or not though.

Eg. Take a 4 core chip on mature large node. Now produce an 8 core chip on a new small node at lower clock speed - the IPC/watt could easily double, but it doesn't tell you what the relative performance is.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The slide is worded more carefully that that. It's 40% better IPC/watt over Excavator. No word on whether it's the same clock speed or not though.

Eg. Take a 4 core chip on mature large node. Now produce an 8 core chip on a new small node at lower clock speed - the IPC/watt could easily double, but it doesn't tell you what the relative performance is.

I expect it is a core to core comparison not taking uncore,etc into consideration. Still a weird comparison none the less!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Wow:

http://gamegpu.com/images/stories/Te...2/wd2_proz.png

[DanceswithUnix]

Wow:

So my old FX 8350 is faster than an i5 4670K? ROFL

Once again I have to wonder what an 8 core Excavator with lots of L3 would perform like.

[scaryjim]

The slide is worded more carefully that that. It's 40% better IPC/watt over Excavator. No word on whether it's the same clock speed or not though. ...

I think CAT's right here - the energy parity is also stated as per cycle, so chips with the same power draw would have the same clock speed - or chips with lower clock speeds would have proportionately lower power draw. That will give an overall improvement of 40% in performance/watt.

AFAIK the top TDP rating for Zen is going to be around 95W, which I guess means we should look at the 83[2|7]0e for direct comparison? They clock at ~3.2GHz base, which sounds curiously familiar, doesn't it?

40% performance boost from there would give you the equivalent of a 4.5GHz clocked FX - so I guess around the performance of the ridiculous 200W+ FX 9-series - only in a 95W TDP. Tasty

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So my old FX 8350 is faster than an i5 4670K? ROFL

Once again I have to wonder what an 8 core Excavator with lots of L3 would perform like.

Probably on par with a Core i5 6600K. Interestingly,an FX8370 with a GTX1080 is only 10% slower than a Core i7 5960X:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages..._review,8.html





It really pushes CPUs like a Core i3,etc.

I think CAT's right here - the energy parity is also stated as per cycle, so chips with the same power draw would have the same clock speed - or chips with lower clock speeds would have proportionately lower power draw. That will give an overall improvement of 40% in performance/watt.

AFAIK the top TDP rating for Zen is going to be around 95W, which I guess means we should look at the 83[2|7]0e for direct comparison? They clock at ~3.2GHz base, which sounds curiously familiar, doesn't it?

40% performance boost from there would give you the equivalent of a 4.5GHz clocked FX - so I guess around the performance of the ridiculous 200W+ FX 9-series - only in a 95W TDP. Tasty

But remember this is core to core IPC comparisons. Now imagine if AMD has improved things like its memory controllers and caches,etc. Actual performance might be more(hopefully).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Interesting:

http://powercolor.com/Global/product...#Specification

Powercolor seem to have an RX480 8GB which only needs one PCI-E power connector!!

[PowerPie5000]

Interesting:

http://powercolor.com/Global/product...#Specification

Powercolor seem to have an RX480 8GB which only needs one PCI-E power connector!!

Surely that can't be right? Unless AMD have silently started rolling out their revised lower tdp Polaris chips? Probably unlikely though.

[scaryjim]

... Powercolor seem to have an RX480 8GB which only needs one PCI-E power connector!!

Surely that can't be right? Unless AMD have silently started rolling out their revised lower tdp Polaris chips? Probably unlikely though.

Standard TDP on an RX 480 8GB is 150W, and the reference cards use only one 6-pin PCIe connector. Clocks on that model are stock (boost to 1266MHz, 8Gbps memory). In other words, it's a stock RX 480 with a third party cooler. Nothing to see here, move along

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Standard TDP on an RX 480 8GB is 150W, and the reference cards use only one 6-pin PCIe connector. Clocks on that model are stock (boost to 1266MHz, 8Gbps memory). In other words, it's a stock RX 480 with a third party cooler. Nothing to see here, move along

It isn't if you look at the picture!!

The RX480 reference PCB is very short.





Its using the same PCB as the RX470 Devil cards.

[DanceswithUnix]

Hopefully they haven't made the VRMs too cheap on the excuse that you can't stuff much power into it anyway with only a 6 pin connector.

Lower power might make for a nicer crossfire experience for people trying to drive a 4K setup though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hopefully they haven't made the VRMs too cheap on the excuse that you can't stuff much power into it anyway with only a 6 pin connector.

Lower power might make for a nicer crossfire experience for people trying to drive a 4K setup though.

The RX470 Red Devil has VRMs rated higher then the reference RX480 card.

[DanceswithUnix]

A few posts back but:

Probably on par with a Core i5 6600K.

Well the 8350 already outpaces the plain i5 6600 according to that graph. That has a lower TDP and hence lower base clock than the 'K', but a lift from 3.3GHz to 3.5GHz doesn't look like enough to get the 6600K up to FX 8350 levels.

I think the 8350 has aged rather well, but that is a stonking showing.

The RX470 Red Devil has VRMs rated higher then the reference RX480 card.

Nice!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A few posts back but:



Well the 8350 already outpaces the plain i5 6600 according to that graph. That has a lower TDP and hence lower base clock than the 'K', but a lift from 3.3GHz to 3.5GHz doesn't look like enough to get the 6600K up to FX 8350 levels.

I think the 8350 has aged rather well, but that is a stonking showing.



Nice!

It makes me wonder how an 8 core Excavator would have fared(as you mentioned earlier). I never quite figured why AMD didn't bother - even if clockspeeds were no better,then chips would have been much smaller and they would have consumed less power surely??